cure this any more than any other Bodily Diseases and he that is afflicted with them must bear them as he would the Gout or Stone or any other Disease that is incident to us but since these affect the Mind more and the Mind also by its close Union and Re-action upon the Body does in great measure raise and excite or abate and allay those therefore it is a great part of Human Vertue and a proper Work of Religion to take as much care as can be of those natural Passions which are caused in 〈◊〉 those different Humours and Temperaments of Body for all Anger and First and the other Bodily Passions that are so troublesome both to our selves and others arise from them The Soul is the same in all Men not more inclined to any of those Passions by its Original make and nature than the contrary they all arise from our Body and our lower Nature and are the results of that and therefore they are in Brutes we often see as well as Men but the Soul by being Vitally united to the Body has a Preception and Sensation of them and such thoughts are necessarily caused in it by them Now neither the first motions of the Body nor first thoughts of the Soul upon them are sinful because they are both necessary but the Soul has a Power within it self either to consent or not consent to these Bodily Motions and Inclinations which we call Passions and this Principle of the Soul we call the Will I do not mean a power to consent to their first rising or not rising in us that is often necessary and unavoidable and so not within the power of the Soul but perfectly unvoluntary but then whether it shall continue such a thought that is excited upon such a Passion at least continue it so far as to approve and like it and consent to it and put it into Act if it can and actually execute it and let it produce any outward and lasting Effects this is in the power of the Soul and herein lies the great Exercise of its Virtues in governing and subduing the Passions and mortifying the carnal Lusts and Bodily Inclinations if it yields to those so as to commit any Unlawfull Actions or any sin in pursuance of them then it fulfills the Lusts of the Flesh and walks after the Flesh and is carnal and carnally minded in St. Paul's phrase Rom. 8.6 but if thro' the Spirit and by help of Religion it does mortify these deeds of the Body it shall live v. 13. If it suffer no sin to reign in its mortal Body nor give way to those Passions and Lusts so as to commit sin by them but with the greatest care and pains keep them within the bounds of Reason and Religion then it does Crucisie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 not that they must become quite dead and extinct so that we feel no motions of them no they may remain in the best and most regenerate Man as to some inward motions of Concupiscence but they are not sinfull unless they conceive i.e. are consented to in the heart and bring forth sin in the life James 1.15 Now Religion is so to Govern and keep under all these Passions and bodily inclinations that they run not into Sin but it cannot quite cut them up and extirpate them it is to improve and perfect Nature by Grace but not to destroy it These Passions therefore caused by those Bodily Humours and Tempers which we are naturally inclined to these which are one of the greatest causes of the troubles and disorders of the mind and which bring the greatest Uneasiness and Perturbation to it and rob it of that Evenness and Calmness and Tranquility which is the great Happiness of it these Religion cannot so wholly remove and take away as that we should be perfectly free from them and from all the motions and risings of them but it will and must so far subdue and conquer them as that they neither have Sinful and Unlawful Effects upon others nor so far disorder our selves as to spoil and destroy the Peace and Rest and Quiet of our minds I do not mean that they should never disturb us for so they will a little as often as we feel them but not to that degree as to take away the Peace and Tranquillity of our mind and to destroy the habit and temper of it if they do we can never be Happy with them How Religion cures them and to what degree it must overcome them I shall consider afterwards at present I shall only observe that Religion does not wholly destroy and root them up nor alter our bodily Temper and Constitution but a good Man still lies open to the first motions of Anger Peevishness Melancholy and the like and may never be quite otherwise any more than alter his Complexion or his Stature and make his Hair White or black but he may have Peace in his Mind and Rest in his Soul notwithstanding that in the rational Frame and Habit and Temper of it founded upon the Hopes and Principles of Religion these are troublesome and uneasie to him and will also affect his Mind as well as any other bodily Pain and Disease but yet his Rest and Tranquility may be consistent with both those for 't is a rational intellectual Sense and Perception in the Soul which depends upon Principles and Rules and not upon mere Temper and Mechanism of body for then ill Weather as well as an ill body would alter and destroy it I come now to show how we may attain it which is the most considerable thing of all and when we have if we shall better understand it than by any other account of it like Health we know what it is tho' we cannot so well describe it and like ease and pleasure we can best Judge of it by feeling it 'T is as Tully calls it sanitas animi the Health and Soundness and good Temper of the Soul and when the Soul wants it it is Sick and under a Disease in Pain and Disorder We all know how good and sweet a thing health and ease is both of Body and Mind so that there need not many words to commend them how to get it and preserve it and recover it when it is lost is the greatest Question Our Saviour here tells us we may find rest to our Souls and obtain this Peace and Tranquility of mind I shall consider what the means are and by what ways Religion does effect this in the following particulars 1. Religion teaches us that Happiness lies chiefly in our Mind that that is the proper seat of it and that it lies not in things without us but is a Treasure in our own Breasts something within ourselves which belongs to our Souls and consists in the Perfection Improvement and Enjoyment of them this is in other words called the Salvation of the Soul restoring it to its lost Happiness and freeing it from the
going in this narrow way these deceive Millions of Souls who tho they believe Religion yet do not live up to it but corrupt and pervert it so as to take off its Force and Influence upon their Lives and make them never the better by it The other reserve which is a most desperate one is that of Atheism and Infidelity or an utter dis-believing all Religion or at least a comfortable Doubt and Suspicion that it may not be true and this I am afraid lies in too many Minds but then all Mankind have been out of their Wits in believing it for there have been very few either in the most Wise or most Barbarous Parts and Ages of the World but what have done so unless then we have been all Cheated with Books of Revelation and Histories of Miracles done by the Prophets of Old and by Christ and his Apostles afterwards which are better attested than any Actions or any Books besides that ever were in the World 1600 Years ago so that we may as well call in Question all the Greek and the Roman story as the Jewish and the Christian and when we have run into such a Frenzy of Scepticism as to do that and without having any positive proof against Religion and the Being of God and another World for it is impossible to have that and the greatest Atheist will not pretend to have any Evidence Certainty and Demonstration but that they may be true notwithstanding all his doubts after all this the whole Frame of Nature and the Wise contrivance of the World of the Heavens above and the Earth and Animals below is a standing Evidence as great as can be given of the truth of Religion in general and a Man's Reason must be wretchedly blinded with his Vices who doth not see it or who winks so hard that he will not discern it these wretched Reserves being therefore taken away I shall proceed to press the duty of entering in at the strait Gate and narrow way and propose the motives to engage us to this notwithstanding all the Difficulties I mentioned 1. Religion is a business of such importance that whatever straits and hardships there be in it we must not stick at those but resolve however to go through with it for our Life our Happiness our All our Eternal state lies at stake and depends upon it Our Saviour only tells us strait is the Gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life and wide is the Gate and broad is the way which leadeth to Destruction And this is sufficient if Life and Death be set before us whatever be the way to them we should look at the great Ends Issues and Consequences of things which are the mark a Wise Man always aims at and whatever means are in our Power to attain the one and avoid the other we should make use of without any long Counsel or Deliberation for no Man demurrs and considers whether he shall choose happiness and escape Misery Nature and Instinct prevent our Reason here and we are made with an inward spring which runs of it self to the one and flies from the other whenever we truly apprehend them and therefore did we consider what that Life is that Eternal Life of Happiness which Vertue leads to which is to live in the perfect Enjoyment of the greatest good and the purest Pleasures free from all Alloys and all Approach of the least Evil and Trouble to live for ever with God and Angels in rapturous Bliss and Heavenly Delights and Joy unspeakable to be Possest of a Crown a Kingdom of substantial Glory and all such Good and Desirable things that this World affords but a faint Shadow and imperfect Resemblance of we should find this is a Life worth being fond of and seeking after compared to which this our present short life mixt with so much real Care and Trouble and so little imaginary Pleasure is but a sort of Death but walking in a vain Shadow and Dreaming of Happiness and hardly worth a Wise Man's choosing were it not for a better Life which is only worth the name of Living where we are born into another World and Vertue shall give us a Glorious Immortality this is a Reward that will sufficiently Recompense our short Labours here and were Religion never so Difficult yet the worth and greatness of that were our Hopes and Desires of it proportionable to it would inspire us with new Vigour and Resolution and convey Strength and Power enough to carry us through them all for what will not a great reward make Men do whither will they not Travel where will they not fight what danger will they Flinch from what Labour will they Refuse when a certain and great reward is offered to ' em And had we but as good thoughts of Heaven as the Soldier has of Honour and Victory the Merchant of Gold and Gain and the Husbandman of a good Harvest we should never think much of all the Pains and Difficulties that are in Religion were they a great many more than they are as on the other side if Men had but a due sense of that Destruction to which the wide Gate and the broad way of wickedness leads 'em and the Sad and Dreadfull Condition their Vices will bring 'em to in another World did they consider what exquisite and amazing Misery both of Soul and Body is wrapt up in those Words of Hell and Damnation no Vice tho' never so Charming would make 'em endure it for one day no Pleasure of Sin for a Season would make 'em bear it for so long a time as this Life is and nothing would ever tempt 'em not only not to suffer it for ever but to run the hazard and venture of it were there not a thousand times the reason to fear it that we have by Religion and were it but meerly probable or but just possible which Atheism it self can never deny yet no Wise man would expose himself to such a Dreadfull and Irretrievable danger for the Poor and Pitifull Temptations that are in the greatest Sin But 2. Besides the Consideration of another World Religion with all its straitness and hardship does not abridge us of any Comfortable Enjoyments of this World nor Deprive us of any of the true Pleasures and good things here which a Wise Man would Desire or which our Nature was made for for they may be all enjoyed within the compass of Vertue and allowances of Religion and that with more Convenience and Advantage than in a Course of Vice and Wickedness Religion does not Deprive us of any good proper to our State and Nature nor tye us up from any of the Comforts or Pleasures of Life with a peevish severity and moroseness with a touch not tast not handle not but only restrains us from what would be Evil and Pernicious to us if it were allowed us keeps us from the forbidden Fruit and from those excesses and extravagancies that are Destructive to
our selves and Mischievous to the World it does not destroy any of our Natural Pleasures but refines and purifies them and draws them off from the filth and Sediments which lies always at the bottom of those that are sinfull and so it makes them clearer and sweeter and frees them from all that Nauseousness and Bitterness that Vice generally mixes with them Virtue does neither Decay nor Disease our Bodies Trouble or Torment our Minds Consume or Squander away our Estates nor Ruin and Shipwrack our Fortunes nor bring any such Mischiefs upon us in this World as Mens Sins often do but as keeping the bounds of it will lead us to Eternal Life so it will generally promote and improve the greatest happiness we are capable of in this 3. Religion is as easie as God could possibly make it and none of its Straitnesses and Severities are Arbitrarily imposed upon us but from the Reason and Necessity of things and the absolute Fitness Goodness and Wisdom of whatever it Commands and its real Tendency to our greatest Perfection and Happiness for Religion is not an Arbitrary and Positive thing made so by the mere Will and Pleasure of God which might have lessened our Burthen and abated of our Duty in many Cases had he pleased and not imposed such hard Tasks and such strait and severe Vertues upon us but have left us more loose and not tyed us up so strictly as he has done this is a great Mistake and a wretched Mis-understanding of Religion for that as to the moral part of it is founded in the Nature and Perfections of God which are Eternal and Unalterable and in the as Eternal and Unalterable Reasons of things and those Respects and Relations which they necessarily have to one another so that as God cannot alter the Nature of a Circle or a Triangle nor make two and two not to be four so neither can he the Nature of Vice and Vertue nor make Good to be Evil or Evil Good Moral Vertues are as much founded in the Nature of things as Mathematical Truths or Metaphysical Verities and the Properties of them are as certain and fixt as those of Lines or Numbers Such Actions are as necessary to the good of the World and the Happiness of Societies and particular Persons as such Offices and Operations of the Body are to maintain its Life and Health so that breathing is not more necessary to the preservation of the one than Justice Fidelity and other Vertues are to the other and should God have let us loose from any of those Virtues even the strictest of them which the Libertines are most apt to complain against such as those which restrain their Natural Passions of Lust and Anger he would have let in a Thousand Mischiefs and Evils into the World and have roade us as Brutish and Uncivilized and as miserable as the very Beasts themselves and as uncapable of Society and the benefits of good Order and Goverment But 4. As all the Laws of God are good and as easie as he could make them so they are made more easie by that Divine Grace and Assistance whereby he enables us to perform them and whereby the Difficulties of Religion are much lightened and abated for every thing is said to be light or heavy in proportion to the strength and power of another and according as our strength is encreased by the Divine Grace and Holy Spirit so is Religion and Vertue made more easie to us so much then of inward strength and power as is conveyed to our Minds by Gods Grace which is a Physical and Secret Energy like that of inward life Strengthening us mightily in the inward Man regenerating quickning renewing raising enlivening us as the Scripture speaks so much lighter is the Burden of Religion that God lays upon us for it is the same thing to take off so much from that or to add so much new strength to him that is to bear it and therefore however hard and difficult Religion be to the weakness and imperfection of Human Nature to our single power which would of it self fall and sink under it yet when we have the Assistance of Heaven and the Aids and Supplies of Gods Grace to help and cooperate with us then we can do all things through Christ which strengthens us and thro' his Grace which is sufficient for us and we cannot in reason complain for want of Power when we may have it and God is ready to give us whatever power we want even to Conquer the strongest Propensities and most irresistable Temptations and this will take greatly off from the badness of the way which leads to Life when we have the Spirit of God like a good Angel to lead us thro' it always to Comfort and Help and Incourage us in it so that it would be much more tolerable tho' it were thro' never so Dark and Unpleasant a Wilderness when like the Jews we have the presence of God and his power to Conduct us all along to the Happy Land 5. Tho' we are apt to complain of the Difficulties in Religion yet there is no great End whatever which we can attain without as much Pains and Labour and going thro' as many Difficulties and Hardships as we do in Religion No Man can arrive to Learning or to any Liberal Art or Science in any Perfection no Man can rise to Honour and Preserment can get an Estate or the like without using as much Diligence as much Care and Watchfullness as in the business of Religion without denying himself as many Liberties spending as much Time and keeping himself to as strict Rules and Measures as are in Religion Nay I dare say many a Man takes more Pains and meets with more Difficulties to get a sorry livelihood in this World than would ordinarily carry a Man to Heaven and make him live Happily for ever what shall we then charge God so Foolishly as if he had used us hardly in Religion and make the way to Happiness strait and narrow and difficult when we as ordinarily and more willingly take as much Pains and go through as many Difficulties in all other things 't is because we have not such a value and Esteem of the Ends and Designs of Religion as we have of other Worldly ones that we complain of the Hardness and Difficulty of that above the other did we think Heaven as Desirable as an Estate and Vertue as great a Good as Honour which is but the shadow of it we should pursue it as vigorously and overlook and contemn all the Difficulties that lie in the way to it and there is this advantage in seeking and pursuing the Ends and Designs of Religion above any of those in this World not only as they are far greater and infinitely more valuable and important but that the one is certainly to be attained if we use our utmost Care and Diligence whereas we may sail and be Disappointed of the other after using all means in order
to it we may not be able to gain an Estate or compass such a Wordly Design let us do what we can in it but no Man shall miss of Heaven but thro' his own Fault and by his own Negligence and Carelesness 6. Many Sinners take more pains and trouble and run thro' more difficulties to compass their vitious Designs and commit their Sins than a good Man does in gaining Heaven and practicing the hardest Vertues and Duties of his Religion For thus how restless and unwearied and indefatigable are the Covetous and Ambitious the Revengeful and Maliticious or the Lustful and Debaucht to attain their Ends and gratifie their extravagant Desires and Inclinations How do their several Lusts put them upon the hardest Drudgery and make them Toil and Labour Watch and Attend Project and Contrive and be at more pains and trouble to undo themselves for ever than would save their Souls and make 'em Happy for ever The Devil is much the harder Master of the two and puts his Slaves to more vile and uneasie work in the Servitude of Sin than God does his Children and Servants in the doing the hardest part of their Duty and many have been greater Martyrs in the Devil's Service and gone through more for the sake of their Lusts than other Martyrs have done for heir Religion and for the sake of Heaven Tho' Vice seems more Natural as falling in with some Propensities and Inclinations that are within us yet how must a man at first offer great Violence to himself and to the tender sense of his own Mind before he can be brought to commit a great Sin With what Reluctancy and Self-denial as great as any that Vertue puts upon us does he part with his first Innocence and enter upon a Debauch till by degrees he grows a less Modest and more Couragious Sinner and is led on at last to commit it with greediness and it becomes Natural to him and 't would be no great difficulty for him to leave it but 't is only the Custom and Habit makes it so and not any thing in Nature or in the thing it self For let the Customs be equal on both sides and let a Man be as long used to Vertue as he was to Vice and he shall find that as Natural and agreeable and as hard to be overcome as the other so that as the Scripture represents it it is as hard for him that has been accustomed to do evil to learn to do good as for the Aethiopian to change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots ' Jer. 13.23 So whosoever is born of God i. e. a very good Man doth not commit sin and he cannot sin because he is born of God 1 John 3.9 But Lastly and to conclude it ought to be no manner of Prejudice to Vertue that there are but a few that enter the strait Gate and find the way to Life and many that go in at the wide Gate and the broad way that leadeth to Destruction as our Saviour says This ought not to be regarded by us as a Discouragement to Vertue or as any good reason to be wicked for Company tho I doubt it is a very common and prevailing one and draws a great many into the broad way because they see such great Numbers in it and they do not care to be singular nor to be Reproached for being so but are willing to do what they see so many others do and hope to escape as well as the rest and that they run but the same risque and hazard that they see so many Thousands do besides and so they resolve to venture as well as others let the Preachers say what they please Now this however common and powerfull it be yet is the most unreasonable thing in the World for is any man in another case willing to be sick or to die for Company or for the sake of example Would any be so Easie or so Complaisant as to pledge another in a Cup of Poyson or would he not stop the mad frolick when he saw the rest of the Company drop down Dead before him Is any Man unwilling to avoid the Plague if he can because there is ageneral Infection and because so many of his Neighbours or Acquaintance have died of it Would any refuse the saving his life and escaping if he could upon a Plank because the rest of his Company are Sinking and Drowning Did Men think it as much worth their while to save their Souls as their Lives how many soever lost them had they as Just and terrible Apprehensions of their own Damnation as they have of their Dying the Temptation of Example and Company would be quickly taken off and signifie nothing For alas what Comfort will it be in the Flames of Hell to hear so many others Roaring and Howling in them their hideous Cries and Tortures and Lamentations will rather encrease than lessen them and make it only a more sad and dismal Scene of Terror like that of a whole City or Country swallowed up by an Earthquake or overflowed with the Eruptions of a burning Mountain and the liquid streams of Fire and Brimstone No Man who knows what it is to be Happy but would wish to be so tho he were alone and no Man who knows that vertue alone is the way to life and happiness but must chuse to be Vertuous tho' he saw never so many others wicked let them Reproach and Laugh at him as long as they please for a Man singular and by himself let them count his Life Folly for being so strict and precise if it be in the great matters of Vertue for not drinking to the utmost pitch nor daring to swear the least Oath nor venturing upon a Debauch or any Common or any Modish or Fashionable Vice the Reproach and Scandal of which is took off by the great Party and Number it has of its side but living up strictly to the Rules of the Gospel and the Terms of Salvation there laid down without any such abatements as the loose Opinions or loose Practices of others are willing to put upon them since God will not alter his Methods or Judgments by any of those let them I say Condemn on Deride him never so much for this and call him Precise Fool or Formal Saint and the like yet no Man that knows the good of Vertue will be Laughed out of it by a Nick-name or be asham'd of being singular in that any more than in any other Excellency of Learning Knowledge or Wisdom above others and I suppose none of those who are so much against singularity but would be willing to be Rich or to be Well and at Ease though never so many others were Poor or Sick and in Pain and why then not to be Vertuous and Happy tho' never so many others are Vitious and Miserable The Fourth Sermon MATTH VI. 19 20. Lay not up for your selves Treasures upon Earth where Moth and Rust doth corrupt and where Thieves break
him I say upon his return with more expressions of love and kindness and rejoycing than he ever did the other who had never offended him This seemed not a just and a fair usage to the elder Brother as much failing in Justice to him as exceeding in kindness to the other too little rewarding the constant duty of the one and too much encouraging the Lewdness and Prodigality of the other so that not without good reason he seems to take it ill and to be angry at this unreasonable dealing of his Father's Parables are very good ways of Instruction and very lively Representations of things or truths by way of Picture or Scene and Dramatical History now tho' all the parts must be suitable and agreeable to one another yet there is a main aim plot and design that runs thro' the whole which was chiefly designed by it and is the great scope of it and other things are but as the Circumstances and Ornaments the Dress and Habit this is the air the stroke that give life and likeness to the whole The Parables of this Chapter concerning the lost Sheep the lost piece of Silver and the returning Prodigal were designed to show how acceptable and well pleasing to God the Repentance of a Sinner is and that he shall certainly be received very kindly upon it and to represent this after the manner of men in a way suitable and affecting to us God who is said in Scripture to be angry and provoked at Sinners is here said to Joy and Rejoyce at their Return and Repentance The joyfull Father kissing and embracing his returning Son putting the best robe on him and killing the satted Calf for him and receiving him with all the expressions of Mirth and Rejoycing this is to represent the love and kindness of God to a Sinner upon his Repentance but we must not apply Parables too far for they touch not in all their parts but only like Globes here and there in a point These Parables seem at first sight to teach and denote that the Repentance of a great Sinner in some part of his Life is more pleasing to God than the constant obedience of a good Man all his Life which undoubtedly can never be true and therefore the Parable can never mean that but only by comparative and condeseending representations to show that God is very well pleased and will certainly accept a Sinner upon his true Repentance that expression must not be understood strictly and rigorously There is Joy in Heaven over one sinner that Repenteth more than over ninety nine just Persons that need no Repentante v. 7. the Angels those lovers of Vertue cannot but rejoyce as much and more at Mens living always by the Laws of Heaven as at their sometimes Repenting for breaking them and God like a wise and good Father cannot but be better pleased that his Children were always Dutifull and Vertuous and Obedient than that they were any time otherwise This is plain and undeniable at first sight indeed upon a Vitious Son 's being reclaimed a Parent may have a quicker Passion and Resentment as upon a Child's recovery after a hopeless Sickness in which he was given over his being restored to life as it were gives a greater Joy to the Parent than if he had been never ill but this is but the working of Different Humane Animal Passions in us and the ebbing and flowing of our Spirits upon apprehension of some good or evil that greatly affects us None of this is truly in God but only the several acts of his Wisdom and Wise resolves of his will and meant and denoted by them 'T is all human and a condescention to the Passions and Humors of men to rejoyce more at the finding one lost Sheep or one lost piece of Silver than at a great many that were always safe so for a lost Chisess â—â—â—â—â—ing home than for a great many that cover were in danger This is not to be taken strictly but only as 't is to teacâ—â— and represent this positive truth that the Return and Repentance of a Sinner is very acceptable and well pleasing to God and that he will certainly be received by him thus in other Parables when Christ to show the power of earnest and constant Prayer represents it by a Widow's importuning an unjust Judge Luke 18. Chap. and by a Friend 's prevailing to make another rise and give him what he wants not because he is his Friend but because of his importunity Luke 11.8 this which is usual with Men must not be strictly applied to God as if his blessing flowed not so much from his own goodness as that they were extorted by importunity so in the Parable of the unjust Steward Luke 16. and in others there is not to be 〈◊〉 nice Application of every part but only of the main scope and primary design which is as it were thereslex image representing the thing intended without those Collatoral rays that are but adventitious and adhering to it Among the many mistakes about Repentance which are not a few for we have made a shift to corrupt most of the positive parts of our Religion and were it not for what is Moral and Natural nothing would secure it from being turned into meer Superstition to serve the Lusts and Looseness and yet stupifie the fears and delude the hopes of Men Sinfully inclined one I say of the greatest mistakes is to think a constant obedience is not to be preferr'd to the truest Repentance or that God will not be more pleased with and more highly reward the one than the other The contrary to which is here plainly supposed and asserted Son thou art always with me and all that I have is thine Where plainly the Father who Rejoyced so much at the returning Prodigal yet allows a great difference between him and his Innocent Son who had always served him and never at any time transgressed his Commandments To make out and illustrate this I shall offer the following Particulars 1. There are a great many I hope in the World who as our Saviour says need no Repentance Luke 15.7 i. e. no such Repentance as is to alter their whole state and spiritual Condition and to change the whole Habit and Temper of their Minds and from bad men to make them good ones for they who by means of a good Education have been always brought up Vertuously and Religiously and preserved from any great and wilfull Sin who never erred from the paths of Vertue nor stept into those of Sin and Death these have a Title to the Character of Zacharias and Elizabeth Luke 1.6 that they are Righteous before God walking in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord blameless and these who never defiled themselves need not to be washed and cleansed as those who have made themselves filthy and impure they deserve not the Character given to the vile and wretched sinners in Scripture nor need such exhortations to Repentance as
need it or make use of it for tho' the goodness of it be never so great yet 't is but in order to an end which is to recover health that was lost and to restore us to that soundness that we wanted 'T is the great Mercy of God and the great Grace and Favour of the Gospel and the great Purchase of Christ's Blood to have the Privilege of Repentance granted to Sinners in so large and full a manner so as to be restored to God's Favour and reconciled to him upon their return as if they had never offended him to have all the guilt and punishment of their past Sins wholly taken off as if they had never committed them to be recti in curia pardoned and in as good state as if they had been always Innocent This should mightily encourage and prevail upon Sinners to Repent and leave their Sins when they are sure of this as they are by the Gospel When tho' their Sins be as Scarlet they shall be white as Snow tho they were red like Crimson they should be as Wool as the Evangelical Prophet speaks Isai 1.18 i. e. tho' they were sins of the deepest Die or highest Nature yet they should be wholly done away and forgiven upon true Repentance from which no Person is excluded How must this encourage the greatest Sinners if they have any sense of Religion or another World left upon 'em to come off from their Sins how comfortable must it be to a poor wretch lying under the sense of his own guilt and the fears and horrors of his own Conscience and the dread of God's Judgments and of Eternal Misery to have these glad Tydings proclaimed to him how will this revive his desponding Soul and chear his sunk Spirit and like a pardon brought to a Condemned Malefactor in the Cart or upon the Gibbet restore him to life and to unspeakable joy and gladness Now this is offered to every Sinner by the Gospel if he repent and turn from his Sins however great they have been and lead a new life and become a new Man and a new Creature before he dies What can be desired more by any reasonable Creature or what more can God offer Would any desire to live and go on in his Sins and yet be forgiven This is for God to give up his Laws his Government and to grant a Liberty to his Creatures to be Rebellious and Disobedient and have no Check or Controul upon them 't is the utmost a good God can grant or a wicked man can desire to be pardoned upon his Repentance and Amendment but his Repenting and Amending is with sorrow for what is past doing his duty for the future as he ought always to have done it performing that Obedience which he ought always to have performed and now this is the best thing next to the having done it and performed it always but it can by no means be thought to be so good as that Repenting is like a Man's setting up again that was once broke and compounding with his Creditors and paying a part he owed them instead of the whole God is pleased to accept of the broken and after-obedience of a Sinner for some part of his Life instead of that entire and unbroken one which is due from him all his life 'T is God's great Grace and Mercy to do this and what he is no way obliged to for he might have damned us for every willfull sin and never have pardoned us tho' we had afterwards Repented of it this is meer free Grace which we owe to Christ and the Gospel and God was no way obliged to it either in Justice or by his natural Goodness but he might have denied it to mankind as he has done to other of his Creatures the Devils and the fallen Angels but still the design of God in granting us this Favour and this mighty privilege by the Gospel is to encourage us to Obedience to perswade us to leave our Sins and to bring us to true Holiness and Goodness of Life when we have been faulty and defective in these before 't is not to encourage us in our Sins or give us any Licence or Dispensation to commit 'em because we may Repent of them this is a horrid abuse and perverting the Grace of the Gospel and turning it into Wantonness and Looseness but the End and Design of all this is to make those good men who have been Sinners to make those Obedient who have been Disobedient either in general or any instance Now therefore 't is much better to have been always thus to have been always Good and always Obedient thro' the whole course of our lives this is the best thing and the very same End more fully and perfectly attained this is designed by Repentance As Health is the design of taking Physick and to be well and sound of using Remedies and Medicines and those who are always healthfull and always sound and always well are in a much better condition than those who stand in need of a Cure tho' it be never so certain and infallible 2. I speak this all the while of Repentance from great and wilfull sins from a habit of them in our lives or at least a voluntary practice of them at some time or other and this Repentance I hope there are many that need not who were never ill persons all their lives nor ever guilty of any such one great and mortal sin as should put them into an ill and damnable state and exclude them out of Heaven had they died I speak not now of the ill state of all mankind by the fall or by our original Corruption and Depravation for that is took off by Christ the second Adam and we are put into a good state by the Gospel and by our Baptism so that no Man is in any danger of Damnation but upon his committing some wilfull and known sins such as the Scripture declares are damnable and exclude from Heaven He therefore that has been free from those tho' not free from all sins which no man is or can be all his life no not in his best state but some Infirmity some Imperfection some sin of Frailty or Ignorance or Surprize will beset him He I say that has lived free from all wilfull known sins and not allowed himself in any voluntary breach of God's Laws tho' he has not kept them so perfectly and exactly as he ought to do but has always had a regard to Religion and his Duty and never violated them in any great instance he was always a Child of God and never forfeited that Title he was never a Prodigal and run away from his Father's house nor wasted his Substance in Riotous living but like the dutifull and elder Son always served his Father neither at any time transgress'd his Commandments He never wandered out of the paths of Vertue nor never let his steps take hold of death he never defil'd his Virgin Innocence nor sullied
and blemish'd his Baptismal Purity nor fell into nor wallowed in any great sin and so needeth not to be washed and cleansed and purisied as a sinner in a higher sense needeth and this is the Happy the Blessed Person whom I prefer to the best Penitent and the truest Convert as the Parable here does 3. This shows the good of early Obedience and the great Happiness and Advantage of a Vertuous and Religious Education and the great Obligation there is for Parents to take care of this and the great thankfullness which those owe to God and their Parents who have had the benefit of it for nothing makes Virtue and Religion so easie or so acceptable to us as to have them taught and instill'd into us in our tender yearâ— when like soft Wax we are capable of any impressions and yet grow hard and retain them afterwards When the Seeds of Virtue are early Planted in our hearts before Vitious Habits or Inclinations are grown up in them and a sense of Religion takes the first possession of us and anticipates and prevents the power of our own Lusts or of evil Examples then Virtue becomes natural to us and Custom makes it both very easie to be practis'd and hard to be overcome for let the Habit and Custom be equal and I doubt not but there is as much difficulty for a Vertuous Person to become Vitious as for a Vitious Person to be made Vertuous It must be with great violence and reluctancy that such an one is brought to commit a wilfull Sin as well as the other to forsake it and therefore Scripture represents both the one and the other as if they were morally impossible As they who are accustomed to do Evil can as hardly learn to do Good as the Aethiopian can change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots so he that is born of God cannot Sin 1 John 3.9 I doubt not therefore but most of the good men that are or ever were in the World are such as have been Vertuously and Religiously Educated and brought up and but few of those in proportion who have been otherwise have been reclaim'd and brought off from the Lewdness and Debauchery they contracted when they were young T is a very hard and difficult thing to make a bad Man a good one the hardest thing in the World what the powerfull Operation of God's Grace is necessary to and what it often cannot effect thro' the stubbornness of the Will and indisposition of the Subject hence those complaints and expostulations I would have healed them but they would not be healed Jerem. 51.9 Turn ye turn ye why will ye die Oh that my people would have hearkned unto me and of Sinners resisting grieving and quenching the Holy Ghost and that God's Spirit shall not always strive with them and the like which shows the strength and power of ill habits and how hard 't is even by all means to get rid of them and how much happier it is to be engaged in an early Obedience and determined by a Vertuous Education than to be afterwards struggling with them 4. This prevents the common and dangerous mistakes about Repentance whereby Men make it a reserve to themselves to excuse them from a Religious and Vertuous and Holy life and think that by means of that they shall avoid all the mischief of their sins at last and be as safe and as secure of Heaven and their eternal Salvation tho' they live never so loosely and carelesly as if their whole lives had been spent in a course of Vertue and Religion 'T is but Repenting before they die and that as little before as they can if they can nick it right and are not cut off suddenly and unexpectedly which is but an accident that happens only to few and the great work and business is done by a true Sorrow and some sincere Resolutions and an Instantaneous change of mind as well as by the most intire Vertue and constant Obedience of a Man's whole life If so most Men's Sins and Lusts will perswade 'em to indulge and gratify 'em the greatest part of their lives if they cannot wholly bring 'em off from a sense and belief of Religion they will thus corrupt Religion and make it thereby comply with them and by these false notions of Repentance raise hopes to themselves of escaping all the mischief of their Sins and their ill lives and saving themselves by virtue of this Repentance at the last without leading a good life which they will therefore be glad to excuse themselves from as not absolutely necessary and so wholly trust and depend and venture upon the other way Now this is putting a trick upon God and Religion and being too hard for 'em upon their own Terms as they think tho' it is indeed putting a trick upon themselves and miserably deluding themselves into destruction by thus abusing this privilege of Repentance and making this Grant and Concession of the Gospel to destroy the Gospel it self and all the design of it which was to make men live well and bring them off from their Sins and not at all encourage them in 'em whereas by thus perverting the Grace of the Gospel and by wrong notions and wretched mistakes about Repentance the Obligations to actual Holiness and Obedienâ—â— are taken off and a Man may secure Heaven and his own Salvation without those by another and much shorter and easier way which is by Repentance at the last which shall be as safe to our selves and as acceptable to God and as well rewarded by him as the other Now I know but one way of saving a Man's Soul and going to Heaven and that is by a good life and by actual Holiness and Obedience Repentance is the bringing a sinner to these and if he do not do this tho' the Sorrow be never so great it is not true Repentance nor will be effectual to his Salvation 't is the Obedience and Holiness that he performs after his Disobedience and Wickedness which constitutes and compleats his Repentance and entitles him to the Divine favour and acceptance and to the rewards of Heaven and another World and the greater and perfecter and more entire this Obedience hath been the more it will be accepted and the more rewarded by a Righteous and Just God who will be Mercifull to Sinners when they Repent and turn to their Duty and Obedience and will accept and reward their broken and imperfect Obedience but not in so high a degree as the constant and unbroken and early and entire Obedience of Vertuous and Good men all their lives Lastly this Notion of an early Virtue and constant Obedience being prefertable to the truest Repentance stands upon the plainest principles of Religion and secures those evident Doctrines upon which all Practical Religion and the obligations of it are built such as these that God will reward every one at the last day according to their works and therefore in proportion to them and
therefore those who have sowed plenteously shall reap plenteously and that nothing but actual Holiness and Obedience can fit us to see God and enter into Heaven and make us meet and qualify us for the inheritance of the Saints in light These are such plain and undeniable principles both from Reason and Scripture that no Doctrine which orposes them and is inconsistent with them can be true and therefore a late and dying Repentance that brings forth no fruits of Obedience cannot be sufficient for Salvation as not coming up to those conditions which are absolutely requir'd by the Gospel to make us capable of Heaven since none but good Men who either always were so or at least who become such after they were otherwise can go to Heaven and the more good and the more obedient and vertuous any Man hath been in his life the greater and higher rewards he shall have in another World for as one Star differeth from another Star in Glory so also shall it be at the Resurrection of the dead as the Apostle speaks where some shall shine in a higher Orb and with greater Lustre and have Crowns of greater weight and brightness who have either done or suffer'd more for Christ and God and Religion than others and therefore they who have been more constantly and more highly Vertuous all their lives shall be more highly rewarded by a Just and Righteous God in that Heavenly Kingdom where Christ tells us are many Mansions and where no doubt are several degrees of Happiness according to Mens several Actions and Vertues Tho' the Penitent and the Prodigal shall upon their return be received into their Father's house and be kindly embraced and entertain'd by him yet their Portion shall not be equal to the Son that was always Dutifull and always Obedient Son thou art always with me and all that I have is thine God grant that all good Men may so persevere in Holiness and Obedience and all Sinners may so timely Repent and be brought off from their Sins that we may all in due time be received into those Mansions of Joy where all Sin shall be done away and there shall be no more Repentance and all Virtue and Obedience Crowned with Glory and Immortality thro' Jesus Christ The Sixth Sermon ACTS XVI v. 30. latter part Sirs what must I do to be saved THis great question is ask'd by one in great trouble and concern when he was affrighted in the night by a sudden Earth-quake which shook the Foundations of the House or Prison where he was v. 27. and so he was awakened into a sense of present danger and this brought him to consider what was future and greater God does often rowse up Men's sleepy and senseless and Lethargic Minds by some present Terror Judgment or Affliction which brings them to consider the concerns of their Souls and an another World when nothing else will This shakes off their thoughtless security and alarms their stupid and unthinking Minds to look about them and see what a dangerous condition they are in and fear is a very proper principle for beginning Religion it 's one of the greatest passions that belong to our Nature and then there is a good ground for it and it only opens our Eyes to let us see a real danger that so we may avoid it and keep out of it It is very usefull and a great branch of that self-preservation which is a principle that lies at the root of our very beings had we no sense of an Evil coming upon us we should run into it blindfold and leap down the precipice we did not see which would be never the less hurtfull to us when fear indeed makes a danger where there is none or represents it greater than it is when it frights the mind with fancied Spectres and imaginary Mormo's or makes it afraid of its own shadow it 's then a weak a mean an unmanly Passion but when the danger is real and great and likely it 's stupid blindness not to see it and rash madness for that reason to run upon it The concerns of another World are both certain and important and he whose Mind has no reasonable fear or just dread and apprehension of them is like Damocles with a naked and pointed Sword hanging over his head by a single hair but he sits securely and does not see it The evils and dangers of a future state are very terrible and may be as far as we know very near us and they are never the less near nor never the less real for our not believing or not having a sense of them It 's very happy therefore if our fear awakens us to consider of them whilst we have means and opportunity to take care to prevent them that before we feel them we think of them and do not like Dives then lift up our Eyes when we are in the midst of Torments it 's then too late to have a sense of them when we cannot get out of them A wise man would therefore so consider them before-hand either out of a just fear or dread of them or from a wise care and concern for his own Happiness that whether any extraordinary providence startl'd his Mind or it were more freely left to its own thoughts yet it should frequently and seriously ask it self this question what shall I do to be saved To be saved is strictly to be delivered from a great danger we were likely to fall into to be snatch'd like a fire-brand out of the fire and like one that was sinking to be catch'd hold on and preserved but it also includes in it a positive Salvation as well as a negative and so comprehends that Happiness which is contrary to the misery we are secured from he who is saved from death gains life by that means and he who is saved from Hell gains Heaven and so both are meant and included in the word Salvation I shall consider at present the great importance of this question What shall I do to be saved and secondly the true answer and resolution to it First of the importance of it and it is certainly the greatest question to us in the World how we may be delivered from the dangers and evils of the next World and how we may escape as the Scripture speaks the Wrath to come and so secure to our selves that eternal Good and Happiness which we call Heaven We can none of us expect to live always here there must be a time and we know not how soon but we are sure it 's not very long when we must take leave of this World and all that is in it and it concerns us to think what shall become of us when that fatal minute shall come as it certainly will that shall make this body of ours a cold lump and put an end to all our present Enjoyments When darkness and the shadow of death shall let down the Curtain and put an end to all these lower Scenes
deportment so does the superstitious make shows and appearances of courtship to Heaven but he is out in all of them and does not what is proper what is really obliging and acceptable to it The Devil not being able to destroy the religious sense that is in our minds not being able to root out that which Nature has planted in every man's breast a sense of a God and a Divine Being above us he endeavours to spoil and corrupt that as much as he can and to sow such cockle and tares among the good and natural seed of religion as may quite choke it and make it unfruitfull as may alter its kind and make it produce such fruit as is not true and genuine but quite of another nature as looks like religion and like the Apples of Sodom seem more fair outwardly but is another thing within because he cannot hinder men from being Religious but there is something within themselves will make them so in spite of all his attempts and designs to the contrary therefore he will make 'em superstitious because he cannot stop the religious instinct and inclination of their minds he will determine and set it wrong because he cannot dry up that natural spring of Religion that rises up in every ones breast he will poyson and corrupt it and because Religion is so deeply and strongly rooted in human nature that it can never be wholly pluck'd up by him therefore he will graft upon it such false and superstitious principles as shall quite alter it's nature and tho' they are fed and nourish'd by a religious sense at the bottom yet this vine shall bring forth Thorns and this Fig-tree Thistles and from this sweet Fountain shall come forth Salt and bitter Waters by a superstitious mixture Religion shall be changed and perverted both in its nature and its effects This is the saddest mischief to true Religion that it should be thus made to destroy it self that its force and power should be turned upon its self and it should be consumed like some Animals by what grows out of it self 'T is thus the Devil most successfully countermines God and destroys Religion by turning it into superstition which how it is done and by what means effected I shall endeavour to show you in three prrticulars 1. By making Men vitious and wicked for tho' superstition may often grow up in weak and silly minds that may be innocent and far from being guilty of very great and notorious vices yet I believe the first and most general cause of superstition in the World is Vice and Wickedness the Devil has first drawn Men to that and then has led them into all manner of errors and falshoods he has first debauch'd their morals and then their understandings he has first wrought upon their Wills and Affections by abominable Lusts and Vices and then he has quickly corrupted their Judgments and led 'em into all manner of mistakes in Religion The superstition of the Heathen World arose I doubt not from that horrible corruption of manners that was among them they would never have set up such a Religion as they did made up of nothing almost but obscenity and filthiness cruelty and blood apishness and folly had not they been as the Apostle represents the Heathen World Rom. 1. Vain in their imaginations and fill'd with all manner of unrighteousness implacable and unmercifull in their own tempers and given up to the most beastly Lusts and unnatural Lewdnesses these Vices in themselves naturally lead them to such a false Religion and such superstitious abominations as they were guilty of But as their manners decay'd so did the true Religion and the right worship of God and as vice got ground so did superstition and they always grew up and encreased and like Hippocrates his Twins lived and died together What hidden cause thus linked them together and how they came to be such inseparable Companions may seem strange when superstition owns and acknowledges a God has a great sense of him upon the mind but if we consider that this sense of a God when it has not had such a due effect as it ought upon it so as to preserve it vertuous and Innocent but Lust and Wickedness and the Temptations of the Devil have overcome it this sense of its own Wickedness joyned with the sense of a God does very naturally and easily bring it to superstition If it had no sense of a God nor no belief of such a being at all if it could get rid of that which it never can then indeed there would be no ground of superstition and this way the Atheist would free himself from all superstitious fears or if it were not vicious and so not sensible of its own horrid guilt and wickedness and its obnoxiousness to this God above neither then would it be superstitious but when it is thus sensible of a great and just God which is the avenger of such crimes as it knows it has been highly guilty of this is the first thing that brings it to superstition because in the 2. Second place this causes a dreadfull fear and terrible apprehension of God upon it it s own guilt scares and affrights it and draws terrible Ideas and Images of God upon its mind so that it looks upon him only as a Malefactor does upon his severe Judge his Jailor or his Executioner it sees nothing but frowns in his face and anger in his eyes and Thunder and Lightning in his hand and fancies all the Instrumenes of Torture and Punishment ready to be applied to it And in such a case as this is what would it not do to pacifie and appease this Deity that it thus dreads what a dreadfull fright and passion must it be in when it can think of nothing that will do it how will it be trying every thing it can think of Come before his altars and bring thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oyl if it were rich enough and give its first born for its transgression and part with the fruit of its own body for the sin of its soul Micah 6.7 and shed its own blood for to make some expiation for its guilt Nothing is so mean and servile nothing so cruel and bloody so shamefull and scandalous but a Soul overwhelmed with a superstitious fear will be attempting and trying be it never so unagreeable to the Divine Nature and never so unfit and unsuitable to please him there is just ground of being afraid of God when we are sensible of our guilt and 't is not this is superstition but when this fear puts Men upon foolish and undue and abominable ways to appease him and gives us such a dreadfull Idea and Apprehension of him as quite excludes all the thoughts of his Goodness and Mercy and puts the mind only into an excessive fright and fit of horror then it is so I cannot think that ever mankind would have formed such a conception of God had not their
so blinded and hardned by their sins that they continued Insidels so that the utmost and one would think irresistible evidence could not prevail upon them Human Nature is still the same it was then and liable to the same corruptions and depravations and when it has suffered its Lusts and Vices and unreasonable Inclinations to grow upon it and have power over it they will quickly bring Men to a wretched blindness of mind and hardness of heart so that the best evidence for Religion and the strongest arguments and demonstrations for the Truth or the practice of it shall not prevail upon 'em but whilst they indulge themselves and continue in their sins this will corrupt their Minds and deprave their Faculties darken their Understanding and spoil their Judgment bring them to hardness of heart and a reprobate mind and to gross and unreasonable Insidelity and at last to a total defection and apostacy from all Religion Take heed therefore says the Apostle Lest there be in any of you an evill heart of unbelief in departing from the living God v. 22. and the way to prevent that was not to be drawn in by any sin nor deceived by any Vice or Lust that should bring 'em to this but to take a present and immediate care to free themselves from every such sin and to perswade one another to keep close to Religion and not to give way to any Vice or Wickedness deluding them at first or growing afterwards more upon them Wherefore exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin From these words I shall consider these two things 1. How sin deceives at the beginning 2. How it hardens the mind afterwards How it first cheats and horribly imposes upon us and then how it brings the mind into a more wretched and depraved and hardned state 1. Of the deceitfulness of sin One would think that either Human Nature were not so rationall as we pretend it is and that this were not our inseperable property or else that Vice were not so foolish and unreasonable so pernicious and destructive as we suppose it to be when we look into the state of the World and see Vice every where prevailing and abounding and most Men choosing and preferring it before Vertue as Men are rational Creatures that act as from principles of Liberty and Judgment so always from an instinct of self good and self preservation which seems to be a natural principle that prevents all reason and which we can never with all our choice and freedom act wittingly and willingly against We can never choose evil as evil but under the colour and appearance of good but our nature is made with an inward spring that runs of it self from a naked evil but always pursues what we apprehend is good for us what appears to us as conducing and tending to our Welfare and Happiness and therefore we must bring Religion and every thing else to this if we would have it fall in with Nature and be lastingly and surely sixt in our Minds But either Vice is not so great an evil so destructive and contrary to the good Welfare and Happiness of Humane Nature or else our reason must be very much cheated and deluded and imposed upon when we are drawn into it and we must be mightily deceived by some false reasoning or other about it in our own minds for there is a sort of reasoning and arguing judging and concluding however short and quick and precipitate and mistaken this be in every moral action we do and some process there is in the mind and thoughts even when we are led never so much by our senses and act not upon thoughts or reason else the action would not be Voluntary or Criminal or capable either of guilt or blame as proceeding from a misuse of our reason and choice our judgment and fieedom Our understanding and reason must therefore judge amiss and be grosly deceived and imposed on when contrary to our good and interest we are drawn into the practice of sin and seduced by its temptations and inveigled by the deceitfullness of it for tho' it be against our reason in one sense i. e. against the right use of it yet it carries our reason along with it at that time we commit it and our judgment determines for it at that instant tho' very rashly and unadvisedly as we find when we come to consider it over again The deceitfulness of sin lies therefore chiesly in these following things 1. In having too high an Opin on Fancy and Imagination of those little Goods Pleasures Profits or whatever present sensual and worldly Enjoyments any of our sins may yield to us or that we can hope to reap by them These are the three Lusts the Apostle mentions Of the Flesh of the Eye and the pride of Life or rather the objects of those these are the gilded bait the fair fruit the alluring charms and inviting temptations that draw in and inveigle every sinner for no Man would be wicked or serve the Devil for nought nor commit any sin out of pure malice to God and Religion and mere hatred to Vertue at least not till he is arrived to a very high degree of diabolical wickedness No 't is to purchase and attain some fancied good and imagined pleasure or advantage something gratefull and desirable to the senses Appetites and Inclinations of our nature that tempts and allures us Now there being a small natural good in many of those sinfull temptations for such it must be allowed bodily pleasure and worldly profit and other enjoyments are which therefore good men may desire and partake of within such bounds and limits as are allowed by God and Religion and those are even the blessings of God's left hand as the Jews phrased them and it is an unnatural piece of Stoicism and an Hypocritical affectation to renounce them wholly and declaim weakly against them Riches and Honours and Pleasures are Lawfull objects of our desire in some degree and may have a proper good allowed to them suitable to our present state and nature and their contraries may be called evils else it would be no Virtue to deny them or forgo them in any case nor would have any reward at God's hand but they are not the great goods our nature was made for nor those that can make us truly and compleatly happy tho' we had never so many of them nor are comparatively any goods because nothing so great as Wisdom and Vertue as Peace of Mind and Tranquility of Soul as an inward Sense of God's Favour and chearfull hopes of Heaven these will make a Man truly and inwardly happy without or with a very little of the other and give him the true perfection and happiness of his nature and make him eternally blessed when all others are perished and gone and signifie nothing 'T is an ignorance of the true nature of good and evil
it will do even by the help of Religion it self to be too hard for Heaven upon its own Terms and Concessions but God is not to be thus mocked or over-reached No Repentance will do but what brings forth the fruits of obedience and a good life nor is a sin so easily repented of after it is committed especially upon such presumptuous terms as may justly provoke God to give it up to an harden'd and impenitent heart and to that wretched state which sin by being continued in will bring it to Which is the next thing I am to consider 2. How Men are hardened by their sins or how sin hardens their minds afterwards and brings them to the most wretched and depraved state and temper And this I shall show 1. In the gross or in general 2. More particularly how and to what degrees it hardens them 3. Make some remarks and observations from the whole 1. How Sin hardens in general When a Man has given way to it in any great and willfull instances and it has made a breach upon his purposes and resolutions which were too weak to hold out against it it will enter with all its force and gain ground daily upon him and quickly conquer and overcome him if he do not repulse it immediately and drive it out by Repentance tho' he may a little struggle and rally against it especially at the first beginning when natural Conscience will strive a while with his carnal Lusts and Inclinations yet if in this conflict the Sin prevails and is too hard for the Spirit and he continues to commit it it will at last wholly master him and bring him into such Bondage and Vassallage that he shall lose the moral liberty and freedom of his mind and be such a slave to it as to be led Captive by it at its will so that in the same sense he both will not and cannot get rid of it for he has then lost the power of his mind and is brought under the perfect dominion of his Lusts and Vices so that tho' he sees the plainest mischief of them and wishes he could leave them and would do so if a faint wish and a mere velleity were sufficient yet he still lives in them to the plainest ruin both of his Body and Soul to his undoing both in this World and another and tho' he sees and seels the pernicious consequences and effects of them yet neither a decayed Body nor a disordered Mind nor a shattered Estate nor Conscience nor Credit nor his own Reason which condemns and reproaches him for them can ever prevail upon him to forsake and abandon them They have taken such strong hold of him and he is so much under their power that he cannot for all these strong arguments and considerations resist the next temptation or opportunity that invites to them His Lusts and sensual Inclinations and disorderly Appetites are grown so strong and his Reason and Religion so weak and unable to resist them that like a mighty Torrent they carry all before them and indeed he himself has broke down all the banks that should withstand them and he is carried down by the violent stream of his Lusts till it dryes up of it self and age and infirmity abate and sink it and his sins as we commonly say leave him and even then when he is dead to sin in some sense yet the Ghosts of his departed Vices still haunt him and the Phantoms or fancies the Spirits if I may so call them of his Lewdness and Debauchery still hover over the Grave and the Carkass as it were of an old sinner and will not quite depart from him This hardning of a sinner is gradual and comes not all at once upon him but by the power of Custom and the strength of Vitious Habits he is brought by time and degrees to this hardned state and by an unaccountable quality in sin it self whereby the mind is as it were petrified by it and brought to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Platonists often speak of such a deadness and stupidness of its faculties and its moral powers as we cannot well express Every sin hardens the mind a little and weakens the first tender sense of good and evil that is natural to it and the longer it continues in it it sensibly hardens it the more tho' by secret and insensible means as even Stones grow out of the Earth that was at first soft and fluid but by time and a saline and other qualities they grow hard and rocky A Sinner at first had great tenderness of mind and could hardly be brought to commit a willfull Sin 'till by Custom and many repeated Acts he grew more harden'd and embolden'd So that what he committed at first with reluctancy he commits afterwards with greediness the first conception and formation of Sin in his mind was by a small seed or principle and by an unaccountable growth and increase a wicked thought became at first an Inclination or rather a natural Inclination produced a Thought a Thought increased the Inclination that begot a Delight a Delight a Consent a Consent an Act an Act by degrees a Habit and that becomes stronger and stronger by time As in the growth of our bodies Anatomists tell us a Gelly becomes a Nerve a Fibre a Tendon a Muscle or a Bone by strange and imperceptible ways The Body of Sin which the Scripture speaks of is formed by custom and grows still more and more and has no fixt stature set to it but is harder to be put off the older it is and gets strength every day and renews it by age The Sin which at first might have been easily withstood and overcome and like a young Weed readily pluck'd up afterwards takes such deep root in a Man's mind that 't is the hardest thing in the World to remove it and to get rid of a long and confirmed habit that has been a great while growing upon us This hardning of the Mind by Sin I take to proceed from Custom which has an unaccountable force and power upon us and does as it were bend the Will that way and put so strong a byass upon the Thoughts and Inclinations of the Mind that it can hardly with all its natural Liberty and God's ordinary Grace get off of it and when the Will is thus obstinately bent to any Lust or Wickedness it affects and draws in the Understanding and corrupts the Judgment and the mind at the same time it is thus hardned by its Vices is blinded also by them and so the two great powers and faculties of the Soul are corrupted by it both at once for hardning respects properly the Will and blinding the Understanding and they always go together and are promiscuously mention'd the one for the other in Scripture Mens Lusts and Vices as they harden them and bring as it were a Callus upon the mind by long use and make it to be past
feeling as Scripture speaks so they darken and blind the Understanding which is as it were the Eye of the Soul and bring a cloud over it or cast a mist before it and hinder it from seeing and discerning things as it ought to do These I confess are all figurative expressions whereby we are forc'd to describe and illustrate the Acts and Operations of the Mind by material and bodily resemblances as the Holy Ghost it self does But there are such real effects in the Mind as answer to them and about which we can use no other Words or Ideas Mens Sins at the same time they harden their Wills and bring them to a senselessness and stupidity about their moral Actions they blind their Judgment also and bring them to a Reprobate sense so as not to see the plainest Truths or greatest Evidence nor be aware of the grossest and most notorious Errors nor be convinced by the strongest Arguments and Demonstrations for the Truth or Practice of Religion 2. I shall consider a little more particularly in the 2d place how and to what degrees the mind is thus hardned and blinded by its Sins 1. And this is done first of all by breaking thro' natural shame and the innate modesty of our minds this is one of the strongest sences which God and Nature have set about Vertue and the greatest check and restraint against Vice for it arises from the first quick and discerning sense of the mind whereby it sees the â—â—â—ness and reasonableness of the one and the indecency and natural turpitude and shame of the other and when this is once broke thro' the mind is quickly Prostituted and Debauched to the greatest Lewdness and Villany and comes to Sin Impudently and with a Where 's forehead at first indeed it was modest and reserv'd and blusâ—â—'d at the rude offers of Sin and ran from them but by coming nearer and making some further approaches to it it was drawn in to consent and so having lest its Original innocence and native modesty it is sooner brought to after-acts of Sin and wears off by degrees that shame which was its great guard and preservative at first and then it lies open to every Temptation and 〈…〉 to every offer and opportunity that invites 〈◊〉 and hardly needs to be tempted but becomes a tempter both to it self and others and a Pander in time to all Vice and Wickedness 2. Sin hardens by stupifying Conscience and deadning the inward and natural sense of good and evil on our Minds so as to bring Men by degrees to Sin without struggle dispute or reluctancy It must be a great while before it comes to this and a man must have gone thro' a long course before he can arrive at this state and perfection of Sinning No Man can commit a plain and great Sin at first without great struggle and remorse of mind and great reluctance and opposition from his own Conscience the spirit will strive against the flesh as the flesh lusteth against the spirit Gal. 5.17 there being a natural principle of Vertue in us as well as of Vice And as a good Man must have many conflicts with his lower inclinations before he can arrive at a full state of Vertue so must a bad Man have as great a contest with his Conscience and the natural sense of his own Mind before he can be perfectly wicked Conscience will check and restrain him at first and inwardly smite and reprove him for doing amiss and this is an evident proof of the natural difference between good and evil and an excellent Monitor set up by God in every Mans breast to mind him of his duty and the great security indeed of all Religion but when Men have by many acts and long customs of wickedness wasted and sinned away Conscience and stifled or stupisied the inward sense of their own minds so as to sin with greater ease and without any trouble or opposition from within without any rebukes or resistances or remorses of their own Consciences for whatever they do then they are become perfect Sinners indeed and come to an absolute and full state of Wickedness to be hardned into an utter insensibility so as to be past feeling and to have their Conscience as it were seared with a hot iron as the Scripture speaks 1 Tim. 4.2 so as to be quite senseless This senselessness may seem an easier and less painfull state but it is more mortal and dangerous and is just such a Disease to the Soul as an Apoplexy or a Lethargy is to the body If this senselessness and stupidity would always last it were much better indeed than sharp and actual pain but the Conscience of a Sinner tho' it may sleep and slumber a while yet it will awake one time or other and like an enraged Lyon tear and devour all about it Either Death or Sickness or some Judgment or Affliction will probably rowse it here and bring the stupify'd mind to it self or to be sure the flames of Hell will make it open its Eyes when it is too late when it can see nothing but horror and despair before it and round about it and where it Conscience shall always torment it with a Worm that never dieth and with never ceasing Anguish and Remorse 3. A third instance and degree of being thus hardned by Sin is doubting of the Truth of Religion and calling into question the principles of it and at last an utter rejecting and dis-believing of them No Man ever did this till he was corrupted in his morals and engaged in a vitious course so that this Scepticism and Infidelity was plainly the effect and consequent of his Vices and proceeded from his Will blinded with his Sins and Lusts rather than from his Understanding or from any want of Evidence about those matters It was first the Sinners wish and desire that there were no God before he question'd whither there was one or no and he never doubted of the truth of another World till it was against his Interest and he was lost and undone if there were one and therefore he was very unwilling to believe it Men must have very much blinded their Minds if they do not see the plainest Evidence for Religion both from Nature and Reason and from History and Revelation from the make and frame of the World and from the make of their own bodies and the inward sense of their own Minds all which make it as unreasonable almost to doubt of the Being of a God as to doubt of their own being and existence and we may as well be Scepticks to the truth of any thing else as to the truth of Religion 4. There is a degree yet beyond this and that is ridiculing Religion and exposing it to Contempt and Laughter which is not only the utmost and most desperate attempt and affront against God but the most rude and unmannerly as well as mischievous thing to all Mankind for all sober and wise Men and civiliz'd
Now the Soul can never be so lost as to lose its Being or its Power of thinking Happy would it be for a great many if it could so lose it self and vanish into air or nothing but 't is the loss of its proper Life and Happiness of the right use of its noble Powers and Faculties and of those Operations and Enjoyments it was made for and suffering the Misery and Anguish which its own thoughts bring upon it This is the unvaluable loss of the Soul and a great part of its Hell as I shall show immediately Sin indeed brings the Mind to this lost and wretched condition by degrees it darkens and blinds the Mind and spoils its powers of rightly Judging and Understanding not in an instant but as darkness comes upon the Earth by gradual approaches 'T is hard perhaps to give a full Account how it does this but it employs the thoughts upon wrong and undue objects it immerses and sinks 'em in carnal Fancies and sensual Ideas it perverts and distorts the Judgment and gives it undue representations of things or it takes it off from thinking and considering at all by such means it brings it to this pass tho' it have eyes to see yet it sees not tho' it have Understanding that is the natural power of it yet it understands not Mat. 13.14 so tho' it have its power of willing yet it wills only evil and has no moral ability to will good from the strong prevalency of its own evil desires and affections This is losing the Soul and the right powers of it and making it like an absorpt Star lose its proper light center and motion tho' it be still a Star but fallen dark and wandring 3. And this I take in the third place to be the Scripture-notion of hardning when Men's sins bring 'em to this state and when God is said to harden them 't is not by any positive influx or poysonous infusion nor yet perhaps by withdrawing his ordinary Grace and the means of conversion from them this he did not from Pharaoh or the Jews or any other Sinners that we know of 'T is only Sin that hardens them and their own Lusts and Vices that blind them and when God is said to do it 't is generally by doing such things as are the occasion not the cause of it which are in themselves proper means of working quite other effects upon them not of hardning and blinding but rather of converting and convincing them Such were all the Miracles God wrought and all the Methods he used both with the Jews and with Pharaoh where he tried all ways to bring them off from their Obstinacy and Infidelity and continued so to do notwithstanding their abuse of them God strikes no Man spiritually blind nor takes away that light which is necessary for him to see by or that strength and assistance which is necessary to convert him 'T is the Clouds only darken the Earth and not the Sun 't is the interposal of the dark body of the one and not the withdrawing the beams of the other which properly brings night upon it I very much question whether there be any other judicial hardness and blindness especially in this Life than what Mens sins bring upon them their being left to the malignant Power and efficacy of those is without any other influence or causality the entire reason of their hardness and blindness and God is said to leave them and give them up to hardness of heart just as a Physician leaves his Patient to the incurable malignity of his Distemper without either giving him any thing to encrease it or without withdrawing the Application of any proper Remedies that might help to cure it 4. Fourthly and Lastly By this we may conceive and understand the misery and wretched state of the Devils and damned Souls who are under the utmost and irreversible state of this hardned and depraved temper of Soul which will naturally and necessarily make them miserable Those accursed Spirits were once capable of noble pleasures and improvements of mind but Sin and Disobedience to God has spoil'd and sunk and corrupted them and brought them to this wretched condition where their thoughts are filled only with rage and malice against God and with an extream horror and dread of him joyned with as great rage and vexation against themselves 'T is a terrible thing for a poor Creature willfully to offend and sin against its Great God impudently to affront and defie its Maker and trample upon his Laws and Government which is setting up its own Will Thoughts and Reason against his This will bring it to dreadfull Thoughts and Resentments one day whatever we think of it or however we slight it now Sin would not have had a Hell and Eternal torments prepared for it by a good God had it not been an opposition to the Will and Counsels of Heaven to all God's designs in making Us and making the World and contrary to all the measures of God's Wisdom and Government and to the Good and Welfare of the whole System of Beings Vice therefore by the order of things throws Men into this miserable state and a lower spirit by having its Thoughts its Will and Understanding so contrary and opposite to the highest spirit and by not having due regards and observances to him must necessarily fall into this state of Misery as well as of his utmost Wrath and Displeasure It 's Vices have depraved and corrupted its mind given it wrong Thoughts of God and of every thing else and sunk it into the love of evil and of every thing contrary to God and Goodness made it delight in mischief and in doing such things as are directly contrary to the good of its fellow Creatures if it were but a little gratifying to it self And now that false pleasure is gone off and it is left wholly to the sting of its Vices and it therefore reflects with infinite remorse upon the folly and the madness and the mischief of them but it cannot now redress or amend them or what injury it has done by them and therefore it must lie for ever under the insupportable weight and burden of them It cannot now raise up its thoughts to any love or desire of God whom it has always had a fix'd contempt and neglect of it cannot now take any delight in him or the apprehensions of him whom it seldom or ever thought of or ever car'd to Worship or Acknowledge before and there is nothing now to divert or entertain it its bodily Pleasures and worldly Enjoyments are gone off and not here to be met with and it is left wholly to its own uncomfortable thoughts and to the extream anguish and bitterness of them It never rightly understood nor loved either God or Goodness and now there is nothing else to be loved and therefore it must hate it self and every thing else It must now bear the misery of its own ill mind which it has been