of being vertuous who have in their Baptism put on Christ and dyed to sin and by the most solemn Vows and Professions been engaged to a holy life all their dayes 't is not to be thought that they stand in need of such a Repentance or of having it so preacht to them or that they shall have the same benefit of it as the ignorant and unhappy World before the coming of Christ into it I Answer Repentance was not a Temporary Duty in the beginning only of Christianity and fitted to the Jews and Gentiles who were first brought over to it as the Socinians would have Baptism but it was a perpetual and lasting Duty such as the weakness and infirmity of Humane Nature and its aptness to fall into Sin would make alwayes necessary and sad would it be for Christians if they were not to have the benefit of it after baptism as well as before which would put them into a worse state than Mankind were in before without Christianity but though Repentance I own was preach'd to them then upon some peculiar accounts and implyed a total change of their Religion and their way of Life which belongs not to Christians and was a Duty previous to Christianity and what was to go before their Baptism and was hardly allowed to those who should afterwards Apostatize from it yet it still remains a Duty to us after we are become Christians so far as we are guilty of any Sin after we are washed in the laver of Regeneration the vertue and benefit of it is not transient and confined only to that time but permanent and in force afterwards all our lives if we truly perform it And according to the different nature and degree of our Sins such is our Repentance as Physick differently fitted to the nature of the disease so the best Authors represent it †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrates apud Xenophon l. 4. de dict fact Socrat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Hom. 78. Tom. 6. to repair the several decayes and weaknesses of Humane Nature to cure it of them any maladies it is incident to and to bring it to such health strength and soundness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chr. Hom. 113. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. as belongs to the Spiritual and Christian and Divine Life of the Soul which is the aim and end and business of Repentance the great Panacaea of the Gospel which supposes us apt to be ill and recovers us as often as we are so It was not a duty so properly of natural Religion because it depended on and is mainly encouraged by the Promise of Gods free Grace and forgiveness of Sin which could not be known by natural light but by that it was evident that they who had done any thing foolishly and wickedly should become wiser and better and the reflection upon any bad actions was attended with sorrow from the Principles of Natural conscience as Plutarch excellently describes it * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch de Animi tranquill The Soul throbbing and beating like a painful Vlcer exercising a Repentance with great shame that is biting and tormenting to it self But this was rather the Disease than the Remedy and they felt only the smart which was Natural but knew not the cure which was Christian and Evangelical The Prophets in the Old Testament preach'd Repentance to the Jews and Pardon upon it as fully and clearly as Christ and his Apostles in the New but it was by vertue not of the Old but the New Covenant which was in force before the Law as St. Paul assures us Gal. 3.17 and to this they owed all their Spiritual Blessings such as Grace Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life as they did their Temporal and the Land of Canaan to the other Many of the Jews did not think such a Repentance necessary to the partaking the benefits of the Messiahs Kingdom as was preach'd by John the Baptist and afterwards by Christ and his Apostles but they thought it was sufficient to be true Israelites or the Children of Abraham and that this would entitle them to the Kingdom of the Messiah here and Heaven hereafter The Talmudists have this comfortable Legend among them That Abraham stands at the Gates of Hell that if the Soul of a wicked Jew come thither he may keep it out like to which some ignorant Christians think now of Christ John the Baptist corrected this mistake when he bad them bring forth fruits meet for repentance and think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our father Matth. 3.8 9. And so does our Saviour particularly in his Discourse with Nicodemus about the necessity of Regeneration John 3. and this was probably one great reason why they all began with and so earnestly pressed and recommended this Duty of Repentance as necessary in the first place to those who would be Disciples of Christ All Christians generally do acknowledge the necessity of it and since we cannot live perfectly innocent so as to be free wholly from all manner of Sin that we must instead of this entire Obedience perform true and sincere Repentance which next to it is the most acceptable to Heaven But there are grievous and fatal mistakes about this Duty of repentance which being made up of several parts many are willing to take some of them for the whole and to make the essence of it lye in those things which are only preparatory or instrumental to it this being a Panacaea the universal Medicine of the Gospel against all our Sins they would compound it of such pitiful and weak ingredients as will not work upon the disease and drive out the corrupt matter and have its due effect upon their Minds and Lives but if it a little gripe and disorder them and they feel some remorse and compunction upon their Minds and some transient Passions of Grief and Sorrow upon their Souls they think this is Repentance though it have no further influence to better and reform their Hearts and Lives They look upon Repentance as a kind of bitter draught that must be taken cum regimine like Spiritual Physick spring and fall perhaps or at some set times or after a debauch or some great Sin and this shall serve them for the whole year after and they may then return to their sins and looseness again with more freedom and greater appetite when that penitential course and discipline is over and thus they Sin and Repent Repent and Sin and never get out of that fatal circle Or they may not put themselves perhaps to all this trouble but leave it all to the last and then resolve to Repent at once for all the Sins of their whole lives and so do the business more concisely and yet as effectually all together This all proceeds from a wrong and wretched notion of Repentance as if it consisted only in some sudden passions of the Mind and inward workings of the Thoughts and not in the
like melancholly persons who read of such grievous diseases fancy immediately that they have them themselves and that such and such symptoms are already upon them If we cannot therefore assure all Persons of Pardon for all manner of Sins however great or however circumstantiated upon their true Repentance of them it will very much take off from the encouragements to this Duty and by taking off Mens hopes in many cases and shutting the door of Mercy against them hinder them from performing this Duty and make them if not act desperately and madly as Men without hopes generally do yet throw them into a comfortless and despairing condition and overwhelm them with remediless sorrow and trouble The general scope and design of the Gospel seems to be to remove all this To preach good tidings unto the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to comfort them that mourn Isa 61.1 To call those to come to Christ who are weary and heavy laden by reason of their Sins with a promise that he will give them rest Matth. 11.28 To preach Repentance and remission of sins in his name among all nations Luke 24.47 without excluding any Persons or excepting any Sins whatsoever to proclaim a general Amnesty and Act of Pardon to all who Repent and come in to the Gospel Had there been an exception as to a more notorious Traytor to any one though a single Sin which Mankind had been like to fall into this would have abated both from the Goodness of God and the Comfort of Men when he should be represented as implacable in some cases and never to be appeased and the other should be left in such danger and hazard that if they fell into some Sins which it was very possible for them to do that then there should be no hopes nor no means of recovery for them God I doubt not is more merciful and Mankind not so miserable as to have any Sin whatever utterly unpardonable which is Repented of but as our Saviour sayes All manner of Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men Matth. 12.31 And as Isaiah told the Jews of old and it is not less so under the Gospel Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wooll Isa 1.18 that is of however high a nature or degree they are they shall upon Repentance and Amendment be done away and forgiven No Sin is too great for the infinite Mercy of God to forgive and the infinite Merit of Christs Blood to atone nor is any excepted in the Covenant of Grace which God has made with Mankind wherein he promises universally to be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities he will remember no more Heb. 8.11 Jer. 31.34 without any bar or reserve to any Sin of what nature or aggravation soever I shall therefore Examine and Answer those places of Scripture which seem to give any countenance to the other severe and cruel Doctrine as to Sins of Apostacy after Baptism or upon Relapse and then largely consider the Nature of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and how or whether that is unpardonable so as to free all honest Minds from any trouble about it SECT I. Of Apostacy Sins after Baptism Vpon Relapse FIrst then as to those places of the Hebrews which are brought as the ground of the Novatian Doctrine for the irremissibleness of wilful Sins committed after Baptism they do not belong to any Sins of a Christian whilst he continues such but to one renouncing Christianity and wholly Apostatizing from it even after he has professed it and had miraculous evidence and conviction of it They who were enlightened or Baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and have tasted of the Heavenly gift have been sensible of the Benefits of Baptism and the Priviledges of Christianity and been made partakers of the Holy Ghost have further had those miraculous and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred upon them which new Baptized Persons then very often had and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come have had a sense of the excellency of the Gospel and the Christian Revelation and those powerful and great Miracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which accompanied the dispensation thereof and the times of the Messiah or that have been duly affected with the powerful Considerations of Eternity and another World which are the great things their Religion sets before them if such as these shall like Julian afterwards or the Gnosticks then fall away from all this and apostatize from their Faith and Religion by the Fears of Persecution or the Love of this World it is impossible to renew them again to Repentance seeing this their revolt implyes no less than the crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh and putting him to open shame i. e. the condemning of Christ as a Malefactor and Impostor and so joyning and consenting with the Jews in Crucifying him as such and bringing an open reproach and discredit upon him as if he were a false Prophet and that upon Tryal and Experience they found his Religion to be false and therefore forsook it This Apostacy and renouncing the whole Religion of Christ is meant also by Sinning wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth Heb. 10.26 It is sinning in the same word and sense as the Apostate Angels did when they revolted from Heaven 2 Pet. 2.4 for in the next Verses it is called Treading under foot the Son of God i. e. Contemning him as a vile miscreant and as if he were not Risen from the Grave but lay dead there and so were to be trod upon and counting the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing as if it were shed justly and so were the Blood of a common Malefactor and doing despite unto the Spirit of Grace reproaching all the evidence by which the Holy Ghost confirmed the Truth of Christ and his Doctrine both in him and his Apostles This can be no less than a malicious apostacy and defection from Christianity in general and not only a wilful breach of any of its particular Laws And something like unto these is that Sin unto death in St. John 1 Ep. 5.16 that which deserved the utmost and severest censures as he which under Moses Law sinned presumptuously and was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did make void and throw off the Law was to dye without mercy Heb. 10.28 So under Christianity this presumptuous Sinner was to be Spiritually cut off from all the Benefits of Christian Communion and from the Prayers of the Faithful as we find they were by the Discipline of the Primitive Church This was so severe at first that they denyed all Peace and Absolution to such Apostates and Lapsi even in articulo Mortis at the point of Death and
unlawfully had it power and opportunity for those first Motions and Inclinations are necessary and unavoidable arising from the frame and constitution of our Nature and the Mechanism of our Body Blood and Spirits so that we can no more help or prevent them than we can the senses of Pain and Pleasure or the Appetites of Thirst or Hunger or the Motions and Impressions of outward Objects made upon our Senses and therefore they are not simply evil but good in themselves so far as they are Natural and intended by God to serve the good of the World and of particular Persons and the wise ends of Providence but as they are irregular and inordinate excessive and immoderate and destroy those ends for which God intended them so far they are sinful and when any of those Natural Appetites or Sensual Inclinations grow too strong and unruly and are not kept under the government of Reason or within the bounds of Vertue and Religion then they carry Men to all loosness and wickedness and make them commit Sin and Uncleanness with greediness A good Man may with St. Paul be very sensible and complain of this body of sin and of death and of the law of sin that is in his members of many irregular Appetites and undue Passions and weak and foolish imaginations and unreasonable desires and inclinations of too quick gusts of Sensual things and too much deadness of Spiritual of having too many thoughts and designs for Earthly and present things and too little zeal and affection for things Heavenly that are a thousand times more valuable These are imperfections that are in the best of us and we see that they are so and are very sensible and complain of them but yet we cannot wholly avoid them but after all our thoughts and all our care they still return upon us and the Flesh will lust against the Spirit and there will be a perpetual war and struggle between them but if the Spirit do so far prevail by the helps of Grace and considerations of Religion that it do never yield to any wilful Sin it shall then be rewarded as a Conquerour which though it did not wholly subdue and drive out that homebred enemy yet kept it alwayes under and made it submit to its Government and not keep up an open Rebellion against it Of this I have largely discoursed in the Third Section of the Third Chapter I proceed now to those Sins which are known wilful and presumptuous habitual and reigning in us any one of which is inconsistent with a good State and excludes us out of Gods Favour here and Heaven hereafter such as the Psalmist in the forequoted place prayes against Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get the dominion over me All known and wilful Sins are presumptuous as being done in defiance of a Divine Authority that we know has forbid them and in contempt of God and his Laws to whom we owe all Honour and Obedience and notwithstanding all those threatnings and severe punishments that God has denounced against them He that sins wilfully after he has received the knowledge of the truth of these things there remains nothing for him but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries This is despising the Law of God thus wittingly and wilfully to break it and is sinning with a high hand and a most presumptuous boldness when we choose to do that which we know is most highly displeasing to Heaven and which God has laid all the obligations he possibly can upon us not to do When any such Sin gets dominion over us so that it becomes customary and habitual to us it makes us the Devils slaves and captives at his Will and shows that he is our Master and that we are the Servants of Sin and overcome by that and brought in bondage to it that it prevails upon our Minds above all the Power of Reason and Principles of Religion and that we choose it above all the great things of Heaven and another World that Religion offers to us and think it more desirable than any of those and had rather gratifie a paltry Lust and a foolish Inclination than save our Souls and have all the favour of God that we prefer it before any other good and let it have the ascendant in our Love and Affections above all other things for it is utterly inconsistent with any Love of God or any due regard to him and banishes all Principles of Religion out of our Minds and destroyes all sincerity and uprightness of Heart towards God and abandons us to a state of enmity with him and everlasting destruction hereafter This I have shown is true of every wilful and chosen and known Sin I shall now from the distinction I have given you of these Sins from those of Infirmity Ignorance and Inadvertency make the following Inferences and Remarks 1. That those Sins of Infirmity are to be Repented of i. e. we are to be sorry for them and pray God to forgive them Though they do not destroy our good state nor deprive us of Gods Favour here or Heaven hereafter yet they are such as are to be matter of Trouble and Sorrow and Humiliation to us and we are dayly to pray God to forgive us our Trespasses as Christ has taught us in the Lords Prayer and the Psalmist in the place before mentioned prayes God to cleanse him from his secret faults as well as to keep him back from presumptuous Sins For 2. These are true and proper Sins and though they are not charged upon us to our Condemnation yet this is by the great Favour and Mercy of God and by Vertue of the Gracious Covenant made in Christ with Mankind for otherwise God in Rigour and Justice might punish and condemn us for them The Papists hold a distinction between Sins Mortal and Venial in their own Nature i. e. that some Sins are in themselves damnable and others not which the Protestants have generally opposed for this Reason because all Sin is in it self Mortal and in its own Nature deserves Death as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a breach and transgression of a Divine Law whose sanction is Death but it is pardonable only by Gods Mercy on the account of its circumstances which make it more excusable with a good and merciful God but that it is not of it self venial or so little as not to deserve Punishment they prove from hence that we are bound to pray God to forgive it Now it is pure Grace and Favour for God to forgive and what he is not obliged to and if he is not obliged to pardon it he may punish it were it not for his Mercy and Goodness and the Gracious Covenant he has made with us in the Gospel This should therefore 3. Make us very sensible of Gods infinite Mercy and kind dealing with us by the Covenant of Grace How many innumerable Sins and
and bruises and putrifying sores i. e. They have been wicked in the general tenor and habit of their Lives and these must be wholly changed the whole mass being corrupted it must be quite altered The whole frame of their Minds and whole course of their Actions must be made quite otherwise like a defiled Body they must be wash'd all over or rather like a dead Carcass they must be raised to life again and restored wholly from their state of Death and Corruption which they were in before There are others who are not so diseased all over but yet have some mortal illness growing in some part upon them who are guilty of some particular Sins some known and wilful Faults that destroy their good state and put them into the rank though not of the greatest Sinners yet of such Sinners as shall not enter into Heaven nor escape Eternal Wrath and Vengeance unless they particularly repent of them and wholly forsake and leave them And thus every one who is conscious to himself that he is or has been ever guilty of any known and great Sin whatever it be though it should be but one such Sin must amend that and must get off that particular illness or else it will prove deadly and mortal if it continue upon him for one such disease or one such wound whilst 't is uncured upon the Soul will kill and destroy it as well as more Though a Man may not be universally depraved nor be wholly prostituted to debauchery and irreligion yet if he will indulge himself in any known Sin or in any particular Lust and Wickedness he is in a lost and undone state till he repents and wholly leaves that Sin And if a Man is in a good state and fall into a wilful and great Sin as we know David did that surely cuts him off for a time from his good state and renders him lyable to Gods Anger here and to Misery hereafter till by a serious and hearty Repentance he recovers himself and is so perfectly recovered from the Sin that he will never commit it again whatever Temptation is offered to him There are other Sins which are of a lower and less heinous Nature which do not destroy our good state nor put us out of the Favour of God nor exclude us out of Heaven and these are such as very good Men are subject to and may not be free from whist they are in this body of Sin and Corruption As the most healthful and best Constitutions may be subject to some smaller illnesses and indispositions of Body though not to great and mortal diseases so some frailties failures and imperfections will stick to the best of Men though not any mortal and wilful Sins and these frailties and infirmities are Sins in a strict sense as coming short of perfect Obedience to the Divine Law and these are in some sense also to be repented of i. e. we are to be sensible of them and sorry for them and we are every day to pray to God to forgive us these our Trespasses and we are to endeavour to overcome them as much as is possible and never let them grow as they may by neglect into wilful Sins but these are all pardonable by the Mercy of God and by vertue of the gracious Covenant which he hath made with us in Christ Jesus upon a general Repentance without a perfect and particular amendment of all of them which is utterly impossible and inconsistent with Humane frailty and infirmity There is therefore a great difference to be made in respect of several kinds of Sins and several sorts of Sinners of this great Duty of Repentance There are some of whom the Scripture sayes that they need no repentance Luke 15.7 i. e. who need not such a Repentance as shall change and alter their Spiritual state who never were in a bad state being early Baptized nor never were guilty in their whole lives of any one such great and wilful and heinous Sin as put them into a damnable state I hope there are not a few who are in this blessed condition and therefore who need not this greater Repentance as I think I may call it who by the blessing of God and by means of a very Vertuous and Religious Education have been early trained up in the wayes of goodness and never departed from them who were set right at first and never wandered or strayed out of the paths of Vertue whose Feet never slipt so far as to take hold of the paths of Death or be caught in the snares of the Devil who never defiled themselves with any great Sin but have preserved their virgin-purity and have had no foul spot to sully the whiteness and beauty of their whole unblemisht Conversation but were alwayes innocent and alwayes safe like Zacharias and Elizabeth were alwayes righteous before God walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless Luke 1.6 I cannot say these are wholly sinless and altogether perfect for so none of the Race of Adam or the Children of Men are except our Blessed Saviour for there are some infirmities and weaknesses and imperfections that belong to these and so they stand in need of that lesser Repentance I before spake of but they never were guilty of the great offence and so need not that greater Repentance which others do And 't is of that I now speak a repentance from dead works as the Apostle calls it Heb. 6.1 A Repentance from wilful and mortal Sins such as put us into an ill state and such as we shall certainly perish except we repent of them Luke 13.3 SECT III. True Notion of Repentance NOw this Repentance I would thus describe answerable to those three words by which it is exprest in Scripture A sorrow for our Sins joyned with change and alteration of Mind and amendment or reformation of Life or such a sense of Mind as makes us leave and forsake or turn away from every Sin or all the Sins we have been guilty of and practice the contrary Vertues or perform those other Duties we have broken or been wanting in Thus where we have been bad Men in any instance and violated our Duty and offended God and broken or transgrest his Laws it will make us become good Men afterwards and perform our Duty and return to God and keep or obey his Commandments in all those cases wherein we have done otherwise before This this alone is such a Repentance as avails to Pardon and Salvation as it takes away every Sin which would damn us and brings us to that Obedience and practice of all Vertue and Holiness without which no man can see God or be saved Repentance I own is a word of an equivocal meaning that signifies several things and has several senses belonging to it as sorrow and trouble of Mind change of Thoughts and the like which are meant by the Latin Paenitentia and Resipiscentia and by the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
new and holy Life and be available to his true Conversion and Repentance and I believe this is Gods usual way by which he begins to effect this upon most Sinners by thus bringing them to some serious thinking and considering It is very great Mercy when God thus checks them in their career and calls to them by the loud voice of his Judgments and thus as he generally does puts the first stop to them and makes them bethink themselves and consider but then this method must not only awaken but keep their eyes open and make them see and consider those other Thoughts and Reasons which are the more proper seminal Principles that will be more likely to produce and beget this true Repentance Such as are 2. In the second place a serious reflection and thorough conviction of the Evil that is in Sin and of the real Good of Vertue as the only thing which can make us truly happy for till Men have brought themselves to be fully perswaded and convinced of this and to believe it as firmly as they do any truth in Mathematicks or any other Science they will never be brought truly to Repent that is to dislike and hate and renounce the one and heartily to love and persue and embrace the other for Men will still love their Sins and hanker after them and be ready to comply and close with them upon every occasion if they only fall out with them sometimes as Lovers do with what they like and admire and tho' there may be some bickerings between them and some penitential passions and resentments now and then yet they may still have their Heart if they do not upon wise observations and thorough convictions believe them to be enemies to their Welfare and Happiness to the comfort of their Lives here and their Eternal Salvation hereafter and that they get nothing by them but poor and empty and sickly pleasures but that they bring substantial misery and bitter remorse and anguish of Mind and a thousand mischiefs and inconveniences along with them at present besides the terrible hazards and dangers of another World so that they are by no means to be loved or chosen if we love our selves or choose our own Happiness For we must bring it to this if we would be steddy and certain to the first Principles of Self-preservation and a desire of our own Happiness which lyes at the root of our Nature and what we shall alwayes act upon if we rightly understand it and do not grosly err and mistake about it and a few wise observations and a little sober thinking and considering will easily satisfie us and fully convince us that Vice is the certain cause of misery to us and that Vertue is the only way to be truly easie and happy The Sinner will be convinced of this by his own experience when he reflects upon his past follies and sees how little he has got by his Sins but shame and sorrow and trouble of Mind perhaps a sickly and diseased Body and a wasted Estate and wretched Beggery and every thing that shall make him miserable in this World before he goes to the greater misery of another For do we not dayly see this how one Man brings himself by his Sins to a morsel of bread how he shipwrecks his Fortunes as well as his Conscience by Luxury and Prodigality another consumes his Body as well as his Estate by Debauchery Lust and Intemperance by these they sin as the Apostle remarks against their own Bodies as well as against their Souls they make them bear the scars and marks of their Sins upon them and become Martyrs in the Devils service and endure often more torture of Body for their Sins than other Martyrs have done for their Religion sacrifice their Lives to them and by living too fast as they call it bring an untimely death upon themselves and are in so much hast sometimes to dye that their Bodies often rot before they come into their graves If these mischiefs do not follow all Sins yet some others do and the greatest of all is inseparable from them which is torment and anguish of Conscience and pain and uneasiness of Mind which every Man feels unless his Conscience be stupified and mortified which is a worse state than the other upon the commission of any great Sin and this is ten times greater than any fancied pleasure in it This is a sting a wound a prick upon the most tender part of a Mans Soul a dart struck through his Liver a Worm gnawing upon his Vitals nothing is so close and so cutting a pain and misery as a Man 's own ill Conscience when it is let loose upon him and like a Fury falls upon him with its utmost rage lashes him with its snaky whips and burns him with its fiery torches 't is then a Devil let loose and a Hell kindled within his own bosom They who have felt but a little of it know it is more exquisite pain than any belongs to the Body and what is it then to endure this for ever and lye under that and the further anger of God to all Eternity Oh madness and folly that wants a name that will do this for any Sin whatever Oh the dreadful Evil of Sin that brings all this and so many other mischiefs upon us But 3. Vertue on the contrary has a thousand Comforts Blessings and Goods belonging to it which should make us love it as we do our selves and choose it as heartily and firmly as we do our own Happiness When we rightly understand and consider it we shall find Reason to do so that neither disturbs our Mind nor diseases our Body nor squanders away our Estate nor brings any reproach and discredit along with it as Vice generally does and it takes away no real Good or true Pleasure or proper Enjoyment from us but it allowes us all that we can desire or that our Nature was made for within the due bounds and limits of our Duty and within those we may enjoy as much Vertuously and Innocently as the greatest Liberty and Debauchery can afford the Sinner Vertue does not destroy our Pleasures but refines and purifies them and so makes them sweeter and better and draws them off from the filthiness and sediment and bitterness that lyes alwayes at the bottom of all sinful Pleasures and Enjoyments No Man ever repented of his Vertues or was sorry that he had done a good Action but he finds great comfort and satisfaction within himself when he reflects upon it and it is a prop and stay to his Mind and he rests securely upon it and is chearful confident and erect under all accidents and all dangers and difficulties whatsoever His Heart standeth right and approveth it self to God and to his own thoughts having no ill designs no base and mean ends and purposes but such only as are good and vertuous and this gives him great peace firmness of Mind and bravery of Spirit and
nor no excuse to make for himself who has neglected and despised all the means of Grace that were offered to him and who would not be perswaded to any true Repentance before it was too late and therefore he must now Repent in vain for ever Who can express the bitter thoughts the fears the horrours the agonies of such a Soul at that time and who would ever feel them who has now power and opportunity to avoid them Death carries something of terrour in it to all Men as it is a punishment of Sin and a dark passage to the unknown Regions that are below and it may be either great presumption or great stupidity to have no Fear of it A good Man may not overcome all the Natural Fear of Death but the wicked has all reason to be scared and terrified with it when it comes near him or he thinks of it I shall therefore in the last place consider the Terrour of Death and how we are only freed from this by Repentance and Religion by the hopes and assurances of Christianity and our having sincerely Repented of all our Sins and so as I have shown fitted and prepared our selves thereby for Death SECT VII Of the Fear of Death and how we are delivered from it by Repentance and Religion THere is no Natural Evil so great as Death the King of Terrors and the chief of those dreadful things that Humane Nature is afraid of Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Job 2.4 He is willing to part with every thing that he may compound with it nay what will not he not give to purchase a short reprieve from Death and the Grave that he may but set them back a while and gain a little more time to live How is the poor Man willing to endure any thing to linger out a miserable Life a little longer though in the midst of pains and aches and greater torments of Body perhaps then he would feel in Death it self How patiently will he submit to the most tedious penance and severest discipline that his Physician shall lay upon him and swallow down the most loathsome and bitter draughts that the more bitter cup of Death may pass from him How will he endure the utmost cruelties of Surgery and bear a living Martyrdom rather than dye have his Body burnt and scarified his Flesh cut and mangled to the Bone his Limbs cut off or sawn asunder that so he may dye by piece-meals and out-live some part of himself and escape out of the hands of Death though it be never so narrowly and run away from it though he leave a Leg or an Arm behind him This shows how Natural the love of Life is and how willing most Men are to preserve and purchase it at any rate and with what abhorrence they look at Death and how it frights and startles them when it comes near them when they behold its pale look and its terrible visage and see the ghastly monster laying hands on them and ready to lay them prostrate at its feet how does it then appalle and terrifie them and make their Blood chill and their Spirits cold and clammy and their Hearts dye within them when they think how their once brisk and sprightly bodies that have been long enjoying all the sweet Pleasures of Life and Sense shall in a moments time be deprived of all those and become only a heavy clod and a cold and senseless lump of Flesh laid out upon its once warm Bed and then lock'd up in its little Cabin and so laid in the proper place of Rottenness and Putrefaction where it is to molder into Dust and to be as clean forgotten in a little time as if it had never been This is a very mortifying and a very melancholly Consideration to most Men and when they consider that in a little time this must certainly be their own case and their own fatal condition this must keep them in perpetual fear and bondage if there were no provision against this Natural Fear of Death if Religion did not afford us some helps and assistances against it and there were not something to take off and abate its Natural Terrour and to support and strengthen and encourage the Mind of a good Man against it Death as it is the Punishment of Sin and was for that end ordained by God and brought into the World for by sin entered death as the Apostle sayes Rom. 1.12 carries some marks of his Anger and so must necessarily have some degree of Fear accompany it but Christ who was to deliver Mankind from the greatest Punishments which our first Parents drew upon themselves and their Posterity by their Transgressions and was to free us from the saddest effects of theirs and our own Sins he has tho' not quite taken away this Punishment no more than he has the other temporal ones occasioned by the Fall for we must still dye and still have some fear of Death yet the worst effects of Death and for which it was most to be dreaded those Christ has delivered us from and it was one great reason why he became a Man and why he took part of the same flesh and blood of which we are partakers and which makes us subject to Death That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage as the divine Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews assures us Heb. 2.15 Now the wayes by which Christ and Christianity do this are chiefly these two I. By assuring us of another Life II. By taking away the sting of Death which is Sin upon our true Repentance I shall 1. Show this Then 2. Enquire whether a true Penitent and good Man ought to have no Fear of Death 3. Give some Directions about thus overcoming the Fear of Death that so we may not be too much terrified with it when it approaches I. Christ and Christianity free us from the Fears of Death by assuring us of another Life and of a Glorious Immortality after Death Death would be very terrible indeed if it took away our Being and made an end of us when it came and put us into a state of Annihilation If the Grave were to swallow us up and we were to pass into the dark abyss of Non-Entity when we went out of the World If when we expired our last Breath our Souls were to pass with it into the soft Air and we were to be no more after we went off the stage of this World Nothing can be so close so desirable as our being which is the foundation of all Happiness and Enjoyment to us which some have thought so considerable that they have supposed it more eligible to be miserable than not to be at all though I can by no means be of their mind and think being only in order to be miserable to
be no desirable thing if the Misery be greater than the Comfort of being and bare existence is a very thin evanid abstracted thing to be compared with solid and substantial Misery but the closest Principles of Self-love and Self-preservation must make us very unwilling to part with our Beings and all the Pleasures and Enjoyments that belong to them and therefore if we were to resign up those by Death it would be very terrible And how could we be sure we did not if we had not firm and certain grounds of another Life after this or if we had nothing but the uncertain guesses and conjectures of it from Natural Light Most Men indeed had some dark intimations of this from thence and did either hope or fear there might be such a thing rather than believe it But now Christ hath brought Life and immortality to light through the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 He hath utterly dispelled that cloud which kept those of this World from seeing into another and hath clearly and manifestly revealed to us the certainty of another and an Immortal State and by his Resurrection from the Dead and Ascension into Heaven given visible and ocular demonstration of it And how should this take off the Fear of Death when we are sure of another Life after it when 't is only a passage to another and a better World too if it be not through our own fault if we are not unprepared and unfitted for it if we are then indeed this is no great Comfort to us but we might wish that Death would put an end to our Being but if we have Repented us of all our Sins and are truly prepared for Death this should much lessen and abate the Fear of it when though we may be a little unwilling to leave our old State and Circumstances our old Dwelling and Habitation our old Friends and Acquaintance and to go into a new and unknown place yet we are sure in the general that we shall be much better provided for and in a much better condition than we are here and tho' the passage seems to us rough and dangerous and we are loth to leave the shore and to launch into the mighty deep of Eternity yet this is a sort of Childish fondness in us to what we have been used to and like the humour of him that would not leave his poor and pitiful Cottage that he has alwayes lived in though he were to go and take possession of a Kingdom in another Country Do not Mankind that have more Wisdom and a larger Spirit willingly leave their own Native Country and Kinsfolks and Relations and transport themselves to an unknown place where there is any fair hopes and probability of mending their Fortunes and living in a more happy and comfortable condition and have we not as good evidence and as much reason to believe that Heaven is as rich and happy a Country as the Indies or any other place where we have never been and had only relations of them from others has not Christ given us as much assurance of this as we can desire and has not the Scripture described and drawn the Chart and Map of those Heavenly Regions and given us as true and full an account of the Pleasures and Riches of them as we can wish for or expect in this Mortal State If we knew them so fully and particularly as we shall do hereafter we should not so much love Life as we now fear Death but God has concealed the particular knowledge of them from us at present that we may be willing to live here but the general knowledge of a Future and Glorious Immortality which we have by Jesus Christ whereby we are assured that Death does not conclude our Being but only translate us to a much better State if we be fit for it by Repentance this should deliver us from the Fear of Death II. Christ has taken away the sting of death as the Apostle intimates 1 Cor. 15.56 and so has delivered us from the servile Fear of it for the sting of death as he there sayes is sin 'T is that which makes the darts of Death so sharp and poysonous because they are envenomed with our own Sin and dipt in our own Guilt Were that but once drawn out we might play with the harmless Serpent and it would not bite or wound us Could we disarm Death of those Terrours with which our own Sins dress it up it would not appear so ugly and so frightful to us 'T is they which put us in a state of Bondage and Servility and depress and sink our Minds with a slavish Fear that we are going to execution when we are going to dye and that we are committed to the Grave but as to a Prison where Death like a terrible Lictor or Executioner is to torment us or we are to be delivered over to him that has the Power of Death that is the Devil Now this may justly terrifie us when we think that whenever Death arrests us it hurries us only to a place of Torments and seizes us as condemned Prisoners to be carried where we must suffer 'T is not leaving the Pleasures of this Life makes Men so unwilling to dye as the fear of going to the Miseries of another 'T is not a present Temporal Death they are so afraid of as that Future and Eternal one which comes after it And this indeed is justly to be feared were Hell to swallow us up as well as the Grave and were we to sink into the bottomless Gulph when our feet take hold of Death but Christ has delivered us from all the danger of this if we do not wifully throw our selves into it He has taken away all that Guilt and all that Punishment due to our Sins which we are afraid of if we have but sincerely and timely repented of them and though Death summons us to Judgment and we know our selves Criminals yet by the performance of that we have our Pardon signed in the Blood of Christ and Heaven will certainly allow of it to a Christian if he have not forfeited it by a desperate Impenitence True and sincere and perfect Repentance will free us in great measure from the Fears and Horrors of Death when it comes near us Our Sins indeed will then be most apt to scare us when Death sets them in order before us but we have all the assurance of the Gospel all the assurance of Heaven that if we have duly repented of them they shall no way hurt or indanger us I will not say that they shall no way make us afraid for this perhaps would not become a very modest and humble and penitent Sinner to be quite fearless but he will have great hopes with his fears and very chearful and comfortable grounds that shall greatly lessen and abate them The righteous hath hope in his death Prov. 13.32 Hopes that his Sins are pardoned in and through Christ and that whenever he goes hence
strongest demonstration of Christianity and it is beyond all controversie that a great many who were not brought to believe in Christ for his Miracles which they saw him do or had as much reason to believe as if they saw him yet were afterwards convinced and believed upon his Resurrection and yet besides this sign which our Saviour sayes was to be given them after they had charged him to do his Miracles by an unclean Spirit Matth. 16.4 for that was meant by the sign of the Prophet Jonas there yet remained another means to cure the Infidelity of these People and bring them off from their unreasonable unbelief and that was the sending the Holy Ghost in so visible a manner upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost whereby the Jews saw and heard those poor unlearned Men who were Fishermen and Publicans and Persons of ordinary Rank and little Education speak all sorts of Tongues and Languages more than the Learnedest of their own Rabbies were able to do and work all sorts of Miracles as great as ever Moses or any of their Prophets were recorded to perform This also without doubt made a great many Proselytes to Christ and his Religion that were not so before and brought in vast numbers of Believers into the Church as we read in the Acts of the Apostles Now when so many means were appointed and used by God and those such strong and powerful ones even after the Jews had been guilty of that vile reproach of many of our Saviours Miracles who can say that this Sin was not curable by any remedies when they were not all used but there were still many others to be applyed and who can say that the Scribes and Pharisees had resisted the last means of Conviction when our Saviour and his Apostles had after that so many others to offer to them and which might probably prevail upon them it feemeth more likely from this which is so plain and undeniable that the Sin against the Holy Ghost was the resisting all the means whatever that were or could be used by the Spirit of God both in Christ and the Apostles too for the bringing Men to Christianity and so it became unpardonable because it baffled the last means that could be used against it and as to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or reproach which ought to be taken notice of as the very specifick form and essential difference of this Sin none seem to be more literally guilty of that no not the Scribes and Pharisees who said Christ did his miracles and cast out Devils by Beelzebub or an evil Spirit than they who in the time of the Apostles when they saw them filled with the Holy Ghost and speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Acts 2.4 yet mocking and vilely reproaching all this said These men are full of new wine ver 13. The ascribing this visible Power of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles to Drunkenness and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mocking at all this as if they had been inspired with the Spirit of Wine or of Bacchus rather than the Spirit of God seems as great a reproach and calumny to him as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the Miracles of Christ and the ascribing them to an unclean Spirit And this was more especially the time of the Spirits oeconomy and dispensation when he was so plentifully poured out upon the Apostles and other Christians and was sent into the World to be Christs Advocate and the publick Patron of Christianity whereas before when Christ was not glorified it is expesly said that the Holy Ghost was not yet given John 7.39 For all these Reasons I should be inclined to be of their Mind who think this to be the true Sin against the Holy Ghost which is therefore unpardonable because uncurable by all the means which the Spirit of God could use were not the words of St. Matthew and St. Mark especially so plain that our Saviour spoke of this Sin because the Scribes and Pharisees said He hath an unclean Spirit Mark 3.30 and because there is no other thing mentioned by our Saviour as the reason of his discourse about it but because when he had healed the Blind and the Dumb and him that was possessed with a Devil the Pharisees said This fellow doth not cast out Devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the Devils Matth. 12.22 24. Our Saviour did not only forewarn the Pharisees and tell them that this calumny of theirs came very near and was a preparation to the Sin against the Holy Ghost and that this would be likely to bring them to commit that afterwards if they took not great care of themselves but he seems plainly to charge them as already guilty and not meerly in danger of it and that which they had already said was no doubt a most horrid Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost and nothing could be worse than to reproach the Spirit that was in Christ himself to whom he was given not by measure but in a more full and extraordinary manner than he was to others afterwards For though the Holy Ghost was not before given to the Apostles nor other Christians till Christ was ascended into Heaven yet he was given to him and to reproach him in him was like the reproaching the Authority of a Prince not only in his Envoys and Embassadors but in his own Son So that allowing the Sin against the Holy Ghost to be the ascribing the Miracles of Christ to the Power of the Devil which seems to be the plainest and simplest account of it and most agreeable to the words of our Saviour and to the only places of Scripture where it is ever mentioned and in such a difficult matter we must be careful not to venture further than we have clear Authority from the Scripture it self then from what has been largely said on this Head it does not seem that this Sin was therefore unpardonable because it had resisted and been too hard for all even the last means of Conviction which was to be used to recover Men from it since there were many others that God had appointed after that 3. In the Third place Can we say it is unpardonable upon another account because God was thereby provoked to withdraw his Grace and Spirit from those who were guilty of it and to give them up to hardness of Heart and an uncurable state of Mind This we must not say of any but where God himself has expresly declared it and it would be great rashness as well as uncharitableness to pronounce this of any but where God has first pronounced it which he has not that I know of of the Scribes and Pharisees upon the account of this Sin against the Holy Ghost Our Saviour indeed charges this in some measure upon the whole Jewish Nation who believed not in him notwithstanding the mighty works which they saw him do and this was a partial but not a total nor an
but it is without all Controversie to be supposed and the same allowances that are to be made to all these and the like expressions of Scripture without which if they are strained over-rigorously they would not be true these they think reasonable to apply to our Saviours expression concerning this Sin and that where it is said not to be forgiven that is not without a very particular and full Repentance of it And to strengthen this a little further they observe that there is another Phrase and Expression concerning this Sin used by our Saviour where the sense must not be forced so far as the words would seem to carry it and that is this That it shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come Matth. 12.32 As if our Saviour did thereby intimate that any Sins should be pardoned in another World which are not in this Some Interpreters think that some of the Jews had this opinion as the Papists now have and that our Saviour therefore used the expression to take off all hopes from them that had such a vain belief and levelled his words against that but I rather think this to be the plain sense that it was only a common Phrase among the Jews that the thing should not be or never be without regard to any such opinion which we have not sufficient authority to prove the Jews had but only that Death they thought was a kind of Expiation for some Sins in their Life However this Phrase must have some allowance made for the words of it and so they would have the other 3. Another Reason for the abating the severity of the Expression concerning this is that there are other Sins which seem equal to this in guilt and heinousness which are yet all declared to be pardonable and those not only the most wilful Sins against Natural Light as well as Revealed Religion but against Christianity and even the Holy Ghost such as were those of the Heathen World described Rom. 2. and yet they were received into the Christian Religion and made partakers of the Christian Covenant as 't is plain many of the Corinthians also were whose Names were put in the List of the vilest Sinners 1 Cor. 6.11 And the Apostle expresly tells them That such were some of them to wit Fornicators idolaters adulterers effeminate abusers of themselves with mankind thieves covetous drunkards revilers extortioners ver 9.10 and yet these very Men were washed were sanctified were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God ver 11. And St. Peters denyal of his Master after he had seen all his Miracles and been so fully convinced by them that he was as he had confest the Son of God was a very great Sin yet upon his repenting and weeping bitterly for it it was forgiven Nay they who treated our Saviour with the basest and the cruelest usage and at last barbarously murdered him our Saviour prayed his Father even to forgive these and therefore that greatest of Sins the putting an innocent Man to death and Crucifying the very Son of God this was not excluded from Pardon but the very Blood that they thus villanously shed was an Expiation for the very Sin of shedding of it And if it be said that these however great and horrid Sins yet were not so immediately Sins against the Holy Ghost against whom peculiarly this unpardonable Sin is committed if we carefully examine the Bible we shall find a great many Sins and Provocations chiefly if not directly against him wherein he was particularly affronted if not blasphemed and reproached and yet not unpardonable St. Paul owns himself a Blasphemer as well as a Persecutor 1 Tim. 1.13 and wherein can we think his Blasphemy consisted not in blaspheming God the God of Israel for he was a very strict and Religious Worshipper of him according to the Law and the strictest Sect of the Jews but it must be in blaspheming Christianity and such things as were done to the spreading and confirmation of that And nothing seems to be so likely a subject of his Blasphemy as the Miracles of Christ and the Apostles because nothing was so strong an Argument for the Christian Religion which could not well be reproached unless those were evil spoken of and yet he obtained Mercy and became the great instance of an hearty Penitent and a zealous Convert But we have more particular Instances of some Sins against the Holy Ghost himself that tended to reproach and dishonour him in a high measure and yet are no where declared to be unpardonable Ananias is said to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts 5.3 and to tempt the Spirit of the Lord ver 9. and vertually to deny his Knowledge and Omniscience by denying part of the Money for which he had sold his Estate that was devoted by him to the Church and Simon Magus who offered Money that he might purchase the Holy Ghost and thought a few pieces of Silver a just Price and valuable Consideration for him and that the Power of God might be bought and sold for a little Money He did reproach the Holy Ghost by which the Apostles did their Miracles in the highest manner Acts 8.19 and therefore St. Peter very severely reproves him ver 20. Thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money And that expression might have been thought to have put him into an irreversible state of Ruine and Perdition had not St. Peter added what shows it to be otherwise ver 22. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee And there is another Instance that seems as great and immediate a reproach to the Holy Ghost as what the Pharisees were guilty of in charging the Miracles which Christ wrought by the Power of the Holy Ghost to an Evil Spirit and that was the mocking at the Disciples upon whom the Holy Ghost was poured out on the day of Pentecost as if they had been inspired with new Wine Acts 2.13 and yet this has no Mark set upon it by the Apostles whereby it can be certainly known to be either the Sin against the Holy Ghost meant by our Saviour or a Sin that was unpardonable 4. As there are other Sins that seem equal to this yet certainly Pardonable so there are expressions concerning some other Sins which seem as much to exclude them from all hopes of remission and to pass as severe and desperate a Sentence upon them as Christ does here upon this and yet the best Interpreters think they admit of an abatement and mitigation as in Heb. 6.4.5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come If they shall fall away to renew them
offer 4. Then Such a Repentance as the Gospel makes the condition of Pardon and Salvation is nothing less than a constant Obedience and an entire and universal Goodness of Life at least after a wicked one or after great failures and miscarriages for Repentance as I have often said is to the Soul like a recovery of Health to the Body after some great Sickness or Illness The whole Body or the part ill affected must be made perfectly well and restored to its former strength and soundness or else it cannot be said to be recovered The Disease must be throughly got off the sickly matter must be discharged the illness must be cured and removed and the Patient must get his former strength and be able to perform the proper and vital operations or else we cannot say he is well So a Sinner must wholly get rid of his past Sins must purge them all out by Sorrow and Contrition must have his Mind wholly freed from them and himself brought to such a Spiritual strength and soundness as to perform the Duties and Operations of the new Life or else he is not recovered by Repentance nor brought from a bad state to a good one He may be under a method of Cure indeed as a sick Man is under a course of Physick whilst he is under Sorrow for Sin and Contrition and Compunction and the like which are good means and instruments and beginnings of Repentance and so are mistaken for the thing it self but his Repentance is not finish'd nor is the great work perfect and compleat till from a bad Man in any kind he is become a good one till this is done which God knows is not the most easie nor the most speedy thing in the World but requires long time and great care and pains and labour there is no title that I know of to Pardon by the Terms of the Gospel nor is there any true Gospel Repentance such as we can give any warrant or assurance of remission to by the Covenant of Grace or the known and ordinary Rules of Gods Mercy Were Repentance only a sudden Passion or a transient Act of the Mind were it only an inward Sorrow Trouble and Compunction of Heart it might be quickly performed and no Sinner would be without it but Cain and Herod and Judas might be said to Repent thus far and after this fashion for thus the one repented and said I have sinned Mat. 27.3 4. the second was exceeding sorry for what he had done Matth. 6.26 and the other was so sensible of his Sin that he cryed out My punishment is greater than I can bear Gen. 4.13 But true Repentance is only known and made to be so by an habitual and lasting change both of Mind and Life by an actual amendment and reformation by a turning away from all our evil deeds and all our wickedness whatsoever that we have committed and doing that which is lawful and right which is the clearest and fullest Scripture expression that gives us the true Nature of Repentance which includes constant and actual Obedience and destroyes these foolish and wicked reserves of securing our selves by playing an after-game of Repentance They who design this have no sense of the true worth and excellency of Religion but are only for making use of it for a little turn at the last as Goal-birds learn to read meerly for the sake of their Neck-verse for though they like their Sins much better and would alwayes live in them it is plain if they were left to their choice yet they at last unwillingly bring themselves to part with them as Men throw over their Goods in a Storm for fear they should be lost and Shipwreck'd with them Thus miserably do they mistake and misunderstand the true Nature of Repentance which is a perfect changing the Habit and Temper and Frame of a Mans Mind and bringing other Thoughts and Principles and Inclinations into it which is called in Scripture a new Heart and a new Spirit and this producing an entire and permanent and universal change of the Life and Actions and making a Man become better in every particular and in the whole a very good Man 5. It is observable that Repentance is all along in the Gospel made a Duty previous and antecedent to Christianity and what was supposed to go before Baptism and what was necessary before-hand to fit and prepare Men to become Christians thus they were to repent and be baptized Acts 2.38 John the Baptist who was to prepare the way for Christianity did it by preaching Repentance for this reason Because the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand Matth. 3.2 i. e. Christianity or the state of the Gospel which is agreed by all to be there meant by the kingdom of Heaven was now approaching and our Blessed Saviour upon that Principle and Argument preach'd the same Duty ver 17. From that time he began to preach and to say Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand And the Disciples of Christ preach'd this Duty Mark 6.12 when they were to prepare and dispose Men to receive Christ and to embrace Christianity and when any that were adult were received into the Church and Christianity by Baptism they were supposed to be Penitents before they were Christians It was a Duty and a Condition alwayes implyed and required that they Repented of their past Sins and sincerely promised and resolved upon a new course of Life That they who had their conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by Nature the children of wrath as the Apostle speaks Eph. 2.3 i. e. in the state they were in before they were Christians for the Gospel considers all Mankind as in a state of Sin and Guilt before they are admitted into Christianity which is a state of Pardon and Salvation that these when they were made Christians were to put off the old man with his deeds Col. 3.9 i. e. all the old Habits and Acts of Sin which they were guilty of in their unchristian state and were to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.24 and they were to become new creatures in Christ Jesus and were therefore then said to be regenerated and to be born again and are represented in Scripture as dying unto all sin in Baptism that they should not henceforth live any longer therein Rom. 6.2 They are buried with Christ by baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised from the dead even so we also who are baptized into his death should walk in newness of life ver 3. So that after Baptism we should reckon our selves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ ver 11. So that the body of sin is then to be put off and destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin ver 6. Thus though Men were considered as Sinners before their Baptism
Heaven though it be a gift is a reward too and shall be exactly proportioned in the degrees of it to the deservings and actions and behaviours of Men. The main foundation then of this Doctrine of the Efficacy or Sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance must be the case of the Thief upon the Cross i. e. the History or Relation of a Man who dyed as a Malefactor and yet certainly went to Heaven for that is the whole of it Now I doubt not but many hundred such Malefactors have gone to Heaven and many Thousand Sinners that were once bad Men but yet had they never Repented till they came to dye I do as verily believe that not one of them had gone thither but to another place where Men shall for ever repent at the same rate that most Men do who have not done so before that time To Ground and Establish this Doctrine upon this Historical Case and 't is I believe the only Doctrine that has such a foundation we must examine whether it certainly and exactly comes up in all the Particulars and Circumstances of it to the case of a wicked Mans living a very ill life till he comes to dye and then only repenting of it We must then enquire whether it plainly and certainly appears from the account the Scripture gives us of it 1. Whether he were a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his Life 2. Whether we are sure he did not Repent long before he came to dye for if these two are not certainly known nor do appear from Scripture the case may be very different and no way suit or answer the late and dying Repentance of a very wicked Man And 3. Supposing those two yet how can we tell whether this might not be an extraordinary case and such as belongs to no other Sinner whatsoever 1. Whether it do appear from the account Scripture gives us of him that he was a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his life The reason of which inquiry is this that a general habit of irreligion and wickedness through the whole course of a Mans life puts him into a more wretched and dangerous and deplorable state than any particular Act of Sin or then any one sin whatsoever for that like a Leprosie spreads over and corrupts the whole Mind lays the whole Conscience waste and roots up all the Principles of Religion and puts Men in the number of those who have no fear of God before their eyes and who live without God in the World but a Man may not be so far gone not be a Sinner of so high a rate but may be an imperfectly good Man and yet fall into a wilful sin by the suddenness or greatness of the Temptation by Surprize and Inconsideration and laxness of Thoughts by a remissness in Religion and not being duely upon his Guard and by the struggle that is in his mind between the Flesh and the Spirit between this World and another which makes the one now and then get the better of the other such an one is a kind of borderer upon Vertue and lives between the confines of that and wickedness and sometimes he is governed and brought under the power of one and sometimes is overcome and made a prey by the other Now though such an one is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven till he comes wholly off from every wilful sin and is more under the power of Religion yet he is nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven and may sooner by Repentance and becoming a good Man fit himself for it and so enter into it It does not at all appear in Scripture from the History of this Penitent Theif whether he had been a very ill Man or no in the general course of his Life only that he was a Thief which was enough to denominate him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and suffered as he himself owns justly and received the due reward of his deeds Luke 23.41 But who knows what abatements his sin might have either by extream necessity or some other circumstances which God might fairly consider and allow for though he was brought to an infamous Death here by the severity of Humane Laws Even a good Man who is so in the general course and habit of his Life may fall into a particular act of wilful sin as we see in David Moses and St. Peter and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall as the Apostle advises 1 Cor. 10.12 For no Man is perfectly out of danger whilst he is in this state of probation and infirmity and though every such Sin breaks a Mans good State and puts him into an ill one till he recovers himself by Repentance and Amendment for Mens States of Grace and Damnation are no way fixt here but are alterable in this World according to the temper of their minds and behaviour of their lives yet 't is more easie to recover from a single act than a long habit as 't is to cure a green wound than an old Ulcer or a Chronical Disease And where there is an habitual soundness within where the Mind is not vitiated with habitual Corruptions and evil Principles and irreligious Habits and Customs but has a pretty good Sense of Religion though it happens to be over-powred with a temptation there it will sooner recover it self and throw off the Disease and the Corrupt Matter by its own inward Strength and the assistance of the Divine Grace There the inward Sense and the Principles of Religion will unfold and expand themselves by the power of Restitution since though they have been prest down and overpowred yet they have not been quite broken and destroyed the Religious and Vertuous Sense will revive again in the Mind which was not wholly extinguished though very much Damped and Choaked and weakned and thus they plainly seem to be in thus penitent Thief by his Carriage to our Saviour which I shall consider by and by by his rebuking the other Thief who was railing at Christ with that most sober Reprimand Dost thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation ver 40. and by the firm belief and full perswasion he had of the happyness of another State and his Devout and Religious Prayer to Christ to remember him when he came into his Kingdom These make it very probable that he was not a very profligate or ill Man in the general course of his Life but rather such a good one who lived not in the habit of many great sins but fell into a particular Act by a Temptation that might greatly lessen it before God though it made him an Example before Men But 2. Whatever his Sin was however great and however sinful a Man he had been yet who knows how long he had repented and how sincerely and what fruits he had shown of his Repentance We know not when the theft was committed and whether he did not immediately Repent of it and make
being in a good State or a State of Grace which is the surest Touchstone by which every Christian may safely try himself and every Sinner know whether he is in a Pardoned and good State namely that they do not live in any known and wilful Sin whatever I shall I. Show the Truth of this II. Consider what other Sins are consistent with a good State III. Represent the Benefits and Effects of Repentance or the Happiness of being in such a good State SECT I. Not committing Sin the only sure Mark of a good State TO show this Mark given by the Apostle to be the true Test and Criterion by which we may make Judgment of our Spiritual Condition and know we are in a good State I shall offer these following Considerations to prove the Truth of it 1. Then those other Marks which come short of this by which too many are apt to deceive themselves are not safe and sufficient Many are apt to make some inward and secret things wrought upon their Minds the Marks of Grace to them and the signs and evidences of their good State whereby they may be sadly cheated and deluded unless these inward Marks are made more certain and evident by outward and visible Actions None can know they have any inward Principle of Spiritual Life in their Souls or the root of the matter in them as some love to speak but by such vital operations and visible effects of it in their Lives as we cannot know the Tree is alive at the root but by the sprouts and branches that shoot from it and show it to be so but we conclude it to be dead without those in their proper time and so we may our selves in a Spiritual sense without the Fruits of Repentance and Holiness in our Lives A Christian cannot know he hath Faith but by his Works nor be sure of Grace in the Heart but by the efficacy of it in restraining him from Sin and the visible effects of it in a Holy Conversation We cannot so perfectly feel and discern this secret and inward principle in our selves so as to be any way assured of it unless the force and power of it appear in our Actions and in reforming and bettering our Lives and to judge of our being in a state of Grace any otherwise from any voice or testimony within is very precarious and ungrounded and very liable to error and delusion for the Spirit bears witness to none but those whose Consciences at the same time bear witness that they are the children of God by not committing sin and it sealeth none but those who have this Mark and bear the Marks of Vertue and Holiness upon their Souls and in their Lives The presumptuous and conceited Enthusiast is very confident and assured of himself and his good state though he is evidently guilty of very great and notorious Sins and therefore he is forced to that lewd Principle that God sees no Sin in his Children and that he may be a Child of God notwithstanding those whereas this according to St. John is the only Mark of a Child of God that he doth not commit Sin To pretend to inward Marks of Grace when we are guilty of sinful Actions is as if a Man should judge himself to be sound at Heart and healthful within when the Plague is broke out upon him and the Spots appear and his Sores run to talk then of the goodness of his Pulse and other secret and uncertain signs within himself whereby he feels himself to be well is evident cheat and wretched delusion and so it is to judge of our Spiritual good State by any inward marks and tokens when our Lives are bad and we commit Sin in the Apostles sense i. e. live in the practice of any wilful Wickedness But further there are other imperfect signs not quite so deceitful and Enthusiastick as these by which many think they are in a good State though they are not brought off actually from every Sin as that they are troubled and concerned at their Sins and commit them with great reluctancy and uneasiness of Mind so that they do the things which they would not and that they often wish they were better and have a mind to leave their Sins and some purposes to do so though their Sins are so strong and powerful that they still prevail upon them and they cannot wholly get rid of them this they take to be good signs of Grace that they have some good motions and stirrings in their Souls some desires and wishes and this desire of Grace they take to be Grace it self and though they do not the good they would yet that they have some mind and inclination to do it Now all this may be in such as are truly Sinners and Unregenerate Persons that are still in an impenitent state and under the power and dominion of their Sins but are not quite sensless and stupified nor are come to what the Apostle calls a seared Conscience without sense of their Sins nor to a reprobate Mind void of all judgment about them which is the utmost degree of profligate wickedness till they are brought to those their Sins will be uneasie to them and fill them with trouble whenever they think and reflect upon them as they cannot avoid to do sometimes and they will feel sharp twitches and vellications of Conscience as long as they have any Conscience remaining and have not quite wasted and destroyed it and worn off all the Natural sense of Good and Evil upon their Minds but if they will still sin notwithstanding this and will not hearken to the secret calls or loud clamours of their own Consciences but will still follow their Lusts and Vices and be drawn away by the strong and alluring Temptations of them all this Regret and Trouble which they sometimes bring upon them is only a self-conviction and self-condemnation and is so far from giving any abatement to their Sins that it adds this highest aggravation to them that they are committed all the while against Conscience and against the inward sense of their own Minds And though now and then in a good mood and a melancholly fit when they are thus troubled for their Sins they have a mind to leave them and come to some faint Wishes Purposes and Resolutions to do so yet if these prove ineffectual and the next Temptation overcomes them and they commit the Sin again when it is offered again and the company or the charms invite again to it 't is certain whosoever thus committeth sin is the servant of sin as our Saviour sayes John 8.34 and 't is a sign he is such a slave to it and it hath got such power over him that it leads him captive at its will and is so far Master of him that he cannot throw it off notwithstanding his frequent Wishes and imperfect Desires that he could but how short all this is of Perfect Repentance and therefore of putting us into a
to state the difference of Mens sins and enquire what are and what are not consistent with a good state but no Judgment could be made between a Good and a Bad Man if this did not distinguish them that the one though he may be encompast with a great many frailties and infirmities yet never allows himself in one wilful known and deliberate wickedness which the other does There may be degrees both of Sinners and of Good Men some have attained to greater improvements and perfections both in Vice and Vertue and are more the Children of God or the Children of the Devil but that which divides their States and cuts the Line of difference between them must be this that the one allows himself in the practice of some known sin or sins which the other does not but carefully avoyds and never commits any such wilful Wickedness Though this seems very plain and undeniable and I have endeavoured to convince every one of the truth of it by the several Arguments I have brought to prove it it being of great use to them to Judge and Examine themselves by this plain and certain Mark and Criterion instead of the many false and uncertain ones that are given out as signs of Grace and to judge thereby of their Spiritual Condition and know whether they are in a Good or Bad State yet there are two seemingly great objections against it The one is the quite other Character and Account which St. Paul gives of himself in the Seventh Chapter to the Romans who was undoubtedly in a good state and a Regenerate Man and yet speaks of sin dwelling in him ver 17. and that the good which he would he did not but the evil which he would not that he did ver 19. and that there was a war in his members warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members ver 23. c. The other is that no Man lives without sin and that 't is impossible he should for in many things we offend all and if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves as the Apostle says and therefore to exclude all from a state of Grace who live in any sin and to make the not committing sin the only true Mark and Sign of Grace is a very hard saying and a very severe thing and in effect is an excluding all Mankind since all are Sinners some way or other and none are so perfect as to live wholly without Sin Now the first of these I shall answer very briefly because I would not enter into any long dispute about the sense of that Chapter and the other I shall more largely consider in a distinct Section because it will occasion my giving an account of the difference of sins what are and what are not consistent with a Good State which is a very material point in the right stating and understanding the Nature of Repentance and the Nature of Sin First then as to St. Paul's description of himself Rom. 7. One of these two things must be allowed by all Sober and Understanding Men. 1. That if he speaks in the Person of a Regenerate Man as some would have it then all the Phrases and Expressions of sin dwelling in him and the like must relate only to those sins of Frailty and Infirmity which a good Man is liable to and cannot be wholly free from and which are therefore consistent with a good State as I shall particularly show in the next Section A Good Man who is especially under a state of imperfect goodness and not arrived to any great degree of Christian perfection may say of himself in many Cases that which I do I allow not I am guilty of many a hasty word and undue passion and unreasonable desire and foolish imagination and the like which I do not approve of with my reason but dislike and wish I could be perfectly free from and so in many cases may say what I would that I do not many degrees of Charity and Devotion and other Vertues which I willingly would yet I do not perform nor come up to such a pitch of goodness as I gladly would but fall short in many things of my Duty and such attainments as I would propose and come up to such an one may be very sensible of the body of death and the bondage of Corruption he is in and of the strength of Concupiscence and the Law in his Members warring against the Law of his Mind Chap. 4. Sect. 3. But these may only relate to such Imperfections and Infirmities and sins of Frailty and Infirmity as may consist with a Good State and belong to a Good Man but they are by no means to be applyed further to the committing any wilful and known and presumptuous sin which cannot be said of a Regenerate Man or one in a good state and therefore 2. Some of those Expressions in that Chapter seem to be such as cannot belong to a Good Man such as those ver 14. I am carnal sold under sin ver 23. That the law of his members brought him into captivity to the law of sin ver 25. That with his flesh he served the law of sin So that St. Paul seems to speak here not of himself as a good Christian but of an Unregenerate Person under the Convictions of the Law and though he uses his own name yet 't is by a Metaschematism a Figure usual to him in other places as Gal. 2.17 18. If I build again the things which I destroy I make my self a transgressor and we our selves are still found sinners Rom. 3.7 If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie why yet am I judged as a sinner where though he uses his own Name yet 't is under the Person of a Blasphemous Objector and 1 Cor. 13.2 If I have all faith and no charity what doth it profit me which is an inoffensive way of transferring odious things to our selves when we would describe and reprove them Thus St. Paul here only personates an unregenerate Man for in other places he gives a quite other Character of a Regenerate one directly contrary to what is here as that He hath crucified the flesh with the affections and lust Gal. 5.24 and crucified the old man Rom. 6.6 and that he is dead to sin Rom. 16.11 and free from sin and the servant of Righteousness Whereas here it is said that sin dwelt in him that he was carnal sold under sin that the law of his members led him into captivity to the law of sin and that with his flesh he served the law of sin this must be the state not of a good Christian but of a Man at least under the Law and therefore the Apostle in opposition to this immediately describes the other more happy state of a Christian under the Gospel in the next Chapter and in answer to the grievous Exclamation O wretched man that I am who
shall deliver me from this body of death he comfortably replies to himself I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord ver 25. i. e. there is a remedy for it by Christ and Christianity and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death ver 2. chap. 8. The Answer to the other Objection will be fully given in the next Section SECT II. The Differences of Sins what are and what are not consistent with a good State THAT all Men are Sinners not only Experience but the Scriptures do in many places assure us that there is not a righteous man upon earth who sinneth not that in many things we offend all and that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us by which is not only meant that no Man is wholly free from all manner of Sin in the whole course of his Life or can pass all his dayes without falling into some Sin or other but that no part of his Life even when he is come to his best State a State of Grace and Vertue is so perfect as to be quite sinless and without any Sin of what kind soever so that he should not be obliged to beg Pardon of God and say dayly Forgive us our Trespasses Now this as it is matter of Humiliation to the best Men so it is turn'd to another use and quite different purpose by the worst they comfort themselves in all their greatest Sins that all Men are Sinners as well as themselves that none are free from all Sins and let them that are so cast the first stone at them they plainly confound hereby the different states of good and bad Men and are not willing to distinguish or make such a true judgment as the Scripture does plainly between them for the same Scripture that tells us all are Sinners and hath concluded all under Sin yet declare that every wilful Sin is damnable and that they who commit it and live in the practice of it shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that he who shall keep all the law besides and yet offend in any one point is guilty of all and shall be punish'd as truly though not so fully for one wilful unrepented Sin as for more There is no way to reconcile this and take off any seeming difficulty about it but by that plain difference which both Scripture and Reason allow between Sins that some of them are Sins of Frailty and Infirmity which are unavoidable to us in our present state and which are consistent with a good one and which the best of Men cannot live wholly without whilst they are in this Body of Flesh and Blood and that others are wilful and presumptuous known and deliberate Sins which are committed with full consent of the Mind and against a plain Law of God and with that presumption and disobedience that makes them unpardonable without a particular Repentance and a perfect Amendment It concerns us very carefully to distinguish and know the difference between those and not to erre to be sure on the wrong side by judging too kindly of our Sins and calling those Infirmities and Weaknesses which are Sins of Wilfulness and Presumption nor can we without judging right and avoiding Mistakes on either hand judge truly and comfortably of our selves and know what our Spiritual state is or what condition we are in as to God and another World The only way to be safe is to avoid every Sin at least every wilful Sin and to grow up to as high a degree of Vertue and Goodness as we can and to get as much mastery over all our Imperfections and Infirmities as is possible but since some Sins and Frailties will cleave to us whilst we carry this body of Sin and of Death about us we may use the Psalmists excellent Prayer both for our Instruction and our Devotion Psal 19.12 13. Who can understand his errors Cleanse thou me from secret faults keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression where he gives us an account of several sorts of Sins 1. Such as he calls Errors and secret Faults by which are meant Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity which we are to pray God to forgive and free us from as well as from others 2. Presumptuous Sins which implye such as are both known and wilful and those 3. such as have dominion over one a reigning habitual prevailing power now if we be kept free from these latter though not the former we are safe and out of danger in a state of sincerity and favour with God and shall be treated as Righteous and Good Men notwithstanding those lesser Faults Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression i. e. from any such Sin as shall indanger my Soul and expose it to Misery and Damnation I shall consider and explain these several sorts of Sins 1. Errors and secret Faults Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity such as we knew not to be Sins when we committed them either by a downright ignorance and not knowing any Law of God that forbad them or by thoughtlesness surprize and inconsideration being unawares engaged in them before we could think or consider As to Sins of Ignorance our Saviour told the Pharisees John 9.41 If ye were blind ye should have no sin i. e. If ye had been perfectly ignorant of the Messiahs coming into the World and had had no knowledge of this by the Prophesies of old and by the Miracles which ye see me do then your Infidelity and Unbelief had been excusable and without Sin Where Christianity is not revealed as to the Heathen World where Faith is not proposed to Men with those Arguments and Reasons which should perswade to it there God will not condemn them for their Ignorance which they could no way help and which was only their misfortune and not their fault Our Blessed Saviour sayes of the Jews If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin Joh. 15.22 i. e. the Sin of Disbelieving and Rejecting him as to other Sins known by their own Law those they had been answerable for to God as St. Paul sayes As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law Rom. 2.12 and as many as have sinned without law shall perish without law i. e. the Gentiles who had not the Law of Moses shall be condemned for their Sins by the Law of Nature It has been an uncharitable Question whether any of the Gentiles should be saved Now tho' they cannot be saved in an ordinary way by Vertue of the Christian Covenant to which they have no title or claim yet God may in extraordinary Mercy let all Mankind have the benefit of it and save them by Christ though they know him not
Frailties are we guilty of in our Lives which are in strictness deviations from the Divine Law How many secret Sins are we to be cleansed and freed from which we might be ignorant of when we committed or not remember afterwards and which are forgotten by us and blotted out of our memories tho' they are not out of Gods but he might impute and charge them to us would he enter into strict Judgment with us How many foolish Thoughts rash Words irregular Passions unreasonable Desires are we dayly guilty of and how many defects and omissions of doing our Duty with less degrees of ardency frequency and perfection then we ought to do these all stand in need of Divine Mercy and this we shall be sure of for Christs sake if we are sincere and hearty and upright in our Obedience but this is a mighty Favour of God and of the New Covenant and calls for a great sense of Thankfulness and Gratitude To say we sin dayly and that the best things we do have Sin mixt with them is true in a certain sense as there is some defect and imperfection in our most Holy Duties and that we have some Infirmities that we ought dayly to confess and beg forgiveness of at Gods hands but this is by no means true of any such wilful Sin as every good Man must be free from whilst he is in a good state and has a title to Heaven Under the Law God had provided a standing Expiation for the lesser Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity by the dayly and other Sacrifices but there was none for presumptuous Sins but he that was guilty of them was to be cut off and dye without Mercy by the Law of Moses Christianity is a more Gracious Dispensation and allowes Pardon for the greatest Sin upon Repentance and Amendment and the Blood of Christ is a standing Expiation for those and all the lesser and dayly Sins we commit and Christ is our dayly Advocate and Intercessor with God for them 4. When the Scripture sayes that we are all Sinners and that if we say we have no Sin we deceive our selves and that there is not a Righteous Man who liveth and sinneth not and we by our dayly Confessions own our selves to be dayly Sinners this is meant only of those lesser Sins of Frailty and Infirmity Ignorance and Inconsideration which I have explained to you which are consistent with a good State which regenerate and holy Men are not quite free from which neither destroy our own sincerity nor Gods love to us nor our reasonable hopes of Heaven but any other Sins that are of a wilful and presumptuous Nature those a good Man must be wholly free from or else he loses his Goodness and becomes a Child of Wrath and Damnation till he recovers himself by Repentance and if he ever falls into any such he must exercise a most bitter and particular course of Repentance and put himself into a state of great Penitence and bring himself to an entire amendment and forsaking of it till he can have any well grounded hopes of Pardon and Salvation There have been a great many Disputes about attaining Perfection of Obedience and Vertue in this Life some holding Erroneously that they could absolutely and fully come up to it and live wholly without Sin others as Erroneously that they were such dayly Sinners as deserved dayly Gods Wrath and Damnation and that they sinned in every thing they did Now these extreams of Errors are easily reconciled and cleared this way that no one can come up to absolute Perfection so as to live without the lesser Sins of Frailty and Infirmity but every good Man ought to be so perfect as to live without any wilful chosen and known Sin 5. Even those lesser Sins we must strive against and endeavour to overcome and master and pray for the Divine Grace and use all care and watchfulness against them else they become wilful and voluntary by our neglect of them and not using a due diligence to prevent and hinder them Smaller Sins like lesser and smaller Diseases may affect and indispose the most sound and healthful Constitution but if they are neglected and suffered to grow too much upon it they may become great and mortal The first motions of Concupiscence are not strict Sins or at most but Sins of Infirmity but if those first sparks are not put out as soon as they are kindled but are suffered to glow and kindle within by morose thoughts and indulged fancies and imaginations they will break out into some undue acts and outward effects If the Passions and Appetites that are Natural to us are not mortified by due care exercise and thoughtfulness they will grow masterless and ungovernable and be at the beck of every Temptation that invites them and run greedily after every Lust that layes a proper object in their way or sets it before them A hasty fit of Anger if it be not put out may not go off in a sudden blaze and expire in its own sudden heats and Passion but the Cholerick humour may concoct into malice and revenge and habitual spite and ill will and so may a fretful peevishness and sharpness of Temper spread like a Tetter and grow incurable and eat out all that sweetness and meekness kindness love and good Nature which are to be the Vertues of a Christian in all the proper acts of them however sower be their Blood or predominant their Spleen God may abate in great measure for an unhappy Constitution but he will never allow any wilful Sin as the effect of it We must guard our selves with greater care and watchfulness where we know we lye open to any such weakness and call in all the helps of Religion to fortifie and defend us against any such enemy that we are so much in danger of else an impure an angry a covetous an ambitious thought and inclination nourished in our Hearts and not watched over and corrected may like a poysonous seed or root of bitterness if suffered to grow up bring forth all the fruits that proceed from it and make all those sinful corruptions in the Heart become wilful Sins and produce actual Transgressions in our Lives We must not allow our selves in any Sins whatever upon pretence of their being little for if we do they become wilful and chosen and as the Wise Man sayes He that sinneth by little and little shall perish by little and little A small leak in a Ship may if it be not stop'd let in Water enough in time to sink it and a small breach in the banks of a Sea-wall may cause a general inundation Some little Sins will adhere to the best of Men but they must not be voluntary or consented to but brought upon them by ignorance surprize or inadvertency and some unavoidable cause or necessity which Morally speaking is so to them and they can never perfectly help it for so much of will as there is in any Sin so
much there is of guilt and whatever abatements there are in our willing it by the Minds not knowing or not thinking of it or being unawares ingaged in it and not having the full use of its powers of choice or understanding so much there is of excuse for it and so far its circumstances make it pardonable by a good God who will not condemn us for any thing we cannot help and which it was not in our power to avoid and all Sins of Infirmity are such some way or other for who can help being ignorant and mistaken after he has used the best wayes he can to inform himself of his Duty and if he then commit a Sin ignorantly and through the meer error and weakness of his Understanding God will forgive it him So who can be alwayes so much upon his guard and have his thoughts so much about him as not to say a rash and unfit word or do a some way blameable action or not have some inward motions and sensual desires rising up in his Mind contrary to strict Reason and Religion If God should for every one of these enter into Judgment with us or condemn us no Man could be saved and no Flesh living could be justified But he who considers our frame and knows that we are but dust weak imperfect blind ignorant inconsiderate heedless Creatures made up of Sensual Passions Appetites and Inclinations that are a part of our Nature he will deal very graciously and favourably with us and not punish us for any unavoidable weaknesses of our Nature but only for the wilful faults and presumptuous miscarriages that we wittingly and willingly commit against him and his Laws God alone can perfectly judge and exactly distinguish between all the faults of weakness and wilfulness and tell what degrees of voluntary and involuntary and so of blame and guilt are in them he knoweth our Hearts and searcheth our Reins and can better judge of our Actions and the secret springs of them than our selves In great and notorious cases every Mans Conscience can judge for him but God is greater than our Consciences and knoweth all things and if we sincerely avoid every wilful and great and notorious Sin and would not for any Temptation in the World commit it if as the Psalmist sayes We be upright and innocent from the great transgression 't is to be hoped all our other Sins and Miscarriages are Sins of pardonable Weakness and excusable Infirmity that do no way endanger our good State and whatever wilful Sins we have been guilty of through the whole course of our Lives our having left them and truly Repented of them as I have directed frees us from all the dangers of them and puts us into the Blessed State of Pardon and Forgiveness notwithstanding the lesser Sins of Frailty and Infirmity which we cannot live wholly without SECT III. The Benefits of Repentance or the happiness of being in such a good state THE Effects and Benefits of true Repentance such as I have described and such as I have given the sure Marks and Criteria of are Pardon and Forgiveness which are very great things and very comfortable words to a poor Sinner to whom nothing can be said more reviving than those few words which Christ pronounced to the Paralytick Matth. 9.2 and which he pronounces by the Gospel to every true Penitent Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee these are words as powerful and effectual as tose of Lazarus come forth and let there be light they will raise a drooping dead Soul out of the Grave and restore Life and Comfort to him they will make light spring out of darkness and dispel the doleful black State he was in and make lightsome joy and gladness arise in his Soul nothing can be said so chearing and refreshing so ravishing and transporting to him unless those other words which will follow upon it Go ye blessed receive the Kingdom prepared for you 't is a very blessed and a very happy state at present next to Heaven it self to have our sins pardoned and forgiven and to be freed from that miserable and wretched state into which they put us if we are but duly sensible of it as we ought to be How would a Criminal that was before condemned and lay under the Sentence of Death be affected do we think and his Spirit cheared and his Heart leap within him and a new Life be put into him when a Pardon is brought him from his Prince and he is discharged from his condemned state and took off from the Cart or the Ladder A Thousand times more reason has a poor Sinner to be raised and comforted when by the Mercy of God and the Love of Christ his past sins and guilt are taken away upon his true and sincere Repentance The Scripture has pronounced such an one blessed in an especial manner by the Mouth of David Psal 32.1 Blessed is the Man whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered and St. Paul could not find out any thing better to describe the blessedness of a Christian by the Gospel then by borrowing the same words as he tells us of David Rom. 4.6 the Holy Ghost inspiring both of them with the same Words and Idea's of Blessedness to Sinners Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin I shall show the Blessedness of this State and Condition which Repentance puts a Sinner into upon these accounts 1. As it frees him from the present miserable state he was in by reason of his Sins 2. As he is delivered thereby from the fears of another World and the more dreadful dangers hereafter 3. As he is hereby reconciled to God and restored to his favour who was angry and displeased with him before First as it frees him from the present miserable state he was in by reason of his Sins Nothing is so painful and uneasie so perplexing and tormenting as guilt when it lies heavy upon a Mans Mind and he has a quick sense and apprehension of it this is to be stung with Scorpions to be whipt with Snakes to have burning Torches and all the conceived instruments of torture applyed to us There is no torment so great as a Mans Conscience struck with the horrors of its own guilt haunted with its own fears as so many Furies or evil Spirits following and disturbing it wherever it goes when it has the image of its own foul actions always before it and imagines a Divine Judgment and Nemesis always behind it when the very chattering of the Birds speaks its crimes to it as in a known story and the hand-writing upon the wall makes it tremble and be amazed and its own inward Consciousness makes it hear and see and read its sad doom and sentence in all places and on all occasions what a lamentable condition must a Man be in when he lies thus under the load
of his sins and the burden is greater than he can bear and his perplexed mind is in such Agonies and Anguish as is unexpressible That sure must be a very comfortable thing which will take him off of this Rack and put him into a state of Ease and Quiet when he is thus tormented and be a present Anodyne to relieve his pains Mankind therefore were in all times very inquisitive and very much concerned to find out a way if it was possible to expiate sin and atone guilt they built Altars and offered Sacrifices and slew Thousands of Sheep and Oxen upon an hundred Hills and came by degrees to offer up Men and to slay their own Children and to give their first born for their transgression the fruit of their bodies for the sin of their Souls as the Prophet expresses it Micah 6.7 They would part with any thing however costly or dear to them to free themselves from the pain and fear they were under and give any hopes or ease to their conscious and timorous and perplext Minds This was a great cause of most of the Heathen Superstitions of their Purgations Lustrations Sacrifices and the like whereby they hoped to clear and purifie their guilty minds and appease the Anger of that Divine Vengeance that they were sensible hung over their heads by reason of their sins This showed the greatness of the Disease and the want and necessity there was of a Remedy for it which they being ignorant of used all the means they could think of and tryed all wayes however odd and foolish to help themselves but it was only Christianity could fully make known the Expiation of sin by the Sacrifice of Christ and our having Redemption by his blood even the forgiveness of sins upon our true Repentance Colos 1.14 This is the most blessed Message and Gospel from Heaven to a poor guilty Sinner this is preaching good tidings to the meek and humble sinner Binding up the broken-hearted proclaiming liberty to the captives opening the prison to them that are bound comforting them that mourn as the Gospel is described by the Prophet Isa 61.1 and in our Saviours own phrase 't is giving rest to them that are weary and heavy laden by reason of their sins Matth. 11.28 when though we are conscious to our se ves of a great many faults we have committed in our lives and some of them such as fill us with shame horrour and confusion when we think of them yet we are assured they are all blotted out by Repentance and the whole guilt of them done away as if we had never committed them this gives great ease and peace to our thoughts when our Conscience is thus discharged of all guilt and the terrible fears and apprehensions of it this is more comfortable to the mind than to be eased of the most tormenting pain of body to have voided a sharp stone after a fit or have a throbbing Ulcer broke and cured 't is unexpressible pleasure to be put thus out of pain and be restored to the peace and comfort of a Man 's own Mind when he had once lost it He who has so truly Repented of his Sins as I have directed hath all Reason for this for he hath as sure grounds of Pardon and needs no more fear Punishment than if he had been alwayes innocent and never had offended or done any thing amiss tho' his Sins fill'd his Mind with Sorrow before and gathered all the black Clouds of Grief and Melancholly over his thoughts yet now they ought to be dispersed and he may chear up and be comforted If he has any Fears they are unreasonable for if his Sins are perfectly gone they ought to be gone too While he was under the guilt of his Sins he had reason with St. Peter to weep bitterly with David to wash his bed with his tears that Bed which he had so polluted before with Mary Magdalen to vent so many tears as might wash her Saviours feet and then wipe them with the Hair of her Head that so she might do Penance with those Meretricious Eyes and Locks which had drawn others into Sin The Pious Penitents of old had all the signs and symptoms of the deepest mourning and lamentation for their sins ashes upon their head sackcloth upon their loins lying down in their confusion because they had sinned striking their Breasts with the Publican and every one crying out in the anguish of his Soul with the Psalmist My iniquities are gone over my head and are a heavy burden too grievous for me to bear My iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up they are more than the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me These are the words and these the Passions and this the Picture of a Penitent under a state of penitence and the guilt of his sins but now upon his true Repentance all Tears are to be wiped from his Eyes or at least the same fountain is to send forth sweet Water that did bitter and that is to become a Balm and an Oyl of gladness to his Soul which was so sharp and corrosive before His Repentance will now be his greatest comfort which was so severe and so bitter before and when his Wounds are healed and bound up and the operation is over The bones which were broken will rejoice and he will hear of joy and gladness instead of sighs sorrow and contrition He who had so much Reason to be angry and displeased with himself before by reason of his Sins and his Folly will now be pleased and satisfied when he is grown wiser and better and will have that solid satisfaction and lasting pleasure in his own Mind which is a thousand times greater than all the vain and empty and short-lived pleasures of his Lusts and Vices and he will now have a thousand times more inward ease by the practice of Repentance than he had before by the practice of his most grateful Sins 2. Repentance as it will free him from the present unhappiness of his Sins and Guilt so it will deliver him from the fears of more dreadful Miseries in another World and from the dangers which he is exposed to hereafter by reason of his Sins This is the chief and great Reason why a Sinner is in such anguish and horrour and perplexity at present because his guilt forebodes greater Miseries to him and his conscious mind has a Prophetick Spirit that foretels evil things to come upon him hereafter He knows he deserves punishment and vengeance to fall upon him and he therefore fears though he has a short respite here yet it shall be unavoidable and in a greater measure hereafter Religion is so Natural to the reason of our minds and has such a sure foundation both in Nature and Revelation that hardly any Sinner can shake off all sense of it and free himself from the fearful belief and expectations of its future punishments and though he