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
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
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
should hearken only to the desires of our Senses and our inferiour Appetites and not to the wise voice and dictates of Reason and Understanding which God had given us We shall be convinced of the folly of this and see the many ill effects that have come of it when we consider rightly and weigh things impartially and make judgment not by our Lusts and Passions but by right Reason and Wisdom and shall condemn our selves when we grow cool for all the mad frollicks and extravagancies we committed in the heat of folly and shall then feel the pains and wounds they gave us tho' we were not sensible of them before Then we shall see that danger which before we were not duly aware of and have a dread and terrour of that upon our Minds which is the due punishment of our Sins for the consciousness of our own guilt will fill us with terrible fears and we shall find the burden greater than we can bear but how fully to get rid of it is a defect and a desideratum in Natural Religion and therefore we must go further than that for the other Motives to Repentance which are fetcht from Revelation and from the Gospel and Christianity under which God now commandeth all men to Repent as St. Paul sayes Acts 17.30 now more than heretofore namely by some more proper and peculiar Motives greater than Mankind had before to encourage them to this Duty such as I shall come now to consider and shall offer very largely SECT III. Motives to Repentance from the Gospel 1. NOW then by Revelation and the Gospel we have an assurance of Gods pardoning us upon our Repentance which the World could not have without a Revelation for this depends upon the free Will and anbitrary Pleasure of God to which he is not obliged by his Essential and Natural Goodness and of which we cannot be certainly assured without an express Promise and Divine Revelation Nature taught all Mankind that there was a God the knowledge of this is not to be had from Revelation but must be supposed as previous and antecedent to it we learn it not from the Bible but from the great Volume of Nature that lyes every where written before us with the plainest Marks of an Infinite and Perfect and Wise God and in that the Characters of his Goodness are as legible as these of his Power and Wisdom by making his Sun to shine on the evil and on the good and sending Rain on the just and the unjust and by other the Natural provisions and contrivances for the good of his Creatures God has shown himself to be no evil and malicious Principle as some Hereticks imagined but a Being of Goodness which is an Essential Perfection of his Nature and as Natural and Necessary to him as his very Being And this Goodness belongs to him not only as a Creator but a Governour and obliges him not to condemn an innocent Creature nor inflict more misery upon it than he gives it good by its Being His Natural Justice as well as his Goodness hinders him from doing any injury by his Power or acting contrary to the unalterable Rules of Right and Wrong from dooming Men to Misery by an Eternal Decree before they had offended him from punishing any one more than he deserves for the fault of another and for any fault of its own that was wholly inevitable and unavoidable but after Men have wilfully offended God and been guilty of voluntary Crimes and presumptuous Disobedience against his known and Righteous Laws and so fallen under his just Anger and Displeasure that then he should not punish them as they deserve this his Natural Goodness does no way require of him if it did then he could never punish any Sin nor make any use of the Sword of Justice but his Goodness would tye up his hands and put a necessary and constant restraint upon him which would make it wholly inconsistent with his other Attributes and with his wise Government of the World in order to which it is more necessary to punish Sin than to forgive it If it be not inconsistent then with Goodness to punish Sin it is not necessary from that it should be forgiven and God is not obliged to do this from his Essential or Natural Goodness but it depends upon a more Free and Arbitrary Grace and Goodness that was not included in the Natural Knowledge of God or in the Notion of the Divine Goodness as a necessary part of it and so not knowable by the Light of Nature Gods Goodness is over all his Works and yet so far as we know he never offered forgiveness to a great number of his Creatures when they once rebelled against him and yet the Devils themselves can bring no just impeachment against the Divine Goodness notwithstanding that no more could we have done if God had dealt thus with Mankind if he had punisht us as soon as we wilfully broke his Lawes and never admitted us to Pardon A good Lawgiver is bound only to give righteous and good Lawes to his Subjects and if they break them they make themselves justly lyable to the punishment that was threatned and 't is no more contrary to Goodness to inflict that then it was at first to threaten it and though that be very severe and terrible yet if it exceed not the merit of the Crime i. e. if it be no greater than is necessary for the ends of Government for that is the only true and full measure by which the proportion of the Fault and the Punishment can be adjusted 't is no way contrary to the Goodness of the Governour to see it executed I do not think he is alwayes obliged to punish by his vindictive Justice no more than he is obliged to pardon by his Essential Goodness but here his Prerogative rogative takes place and there is room either to pardon or to punish as he pleases without regard to any Law or Obligation Mercy which is a relaxing of a Law is due by no Law if it were it would make void all other Lawes it would be not a relaxing or an abating of a Law but a correcting all other Lawes by a Law that is superiour to them and so it would be an injury or a denying a Legal Right not to grant it where that snperiour Law required it but it is a pure and arbitrary and undue favour shown to one that has no manner of right or claim to it which a supreme Governour who has a Power paramount to all Law may by vertue of that grant or deny by the meer motion and free inclination of his own good pleasure So that Mankind could not know that God would do this would be so good as to forgive their wilful Sins and Offences against him from his Natural Goodness nor could have any certain grounds to be assured of this but by his own express promise and positive declaration of this his free Grace and good Will towards them
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
Bodily Inclinations with others and may be disposed thereby to such Lustings and Desires of the Flesh but they do not let those carry them to unlawful Practices to undue Obâ—ects to consent to what is sinful or commit any thing that is forbidden by a Divine Law The worst of Men may have some ineffectual Desires and good Motions stirred up in their Souls now and then and it may be with some force and violence that they overcome the tender sense of their own Minds and the strugglings and rebukes of their own Consciences and their own Spirits and the Spirit of God may strive within them against their Lusts and sinful Inclinations but the latter is too hard for them and the Temptations of Sin and Wickedness prevail over all their faint Desires good Wishes Purposes or Resolutions 'T is certain no Man can be wicked but against the sense of his own Mind the smiting of his Conscience the convictions of his own Reason and Judgment and a strong inward Principle that makes Vice troublesome and uneasie to him at its first commitment before he has worn off Natural Shame and Innocence and is hardened by Custom and long continuance We have Naturally in us a Principle of Vertue as well as of Vice they are both indeed blended and mixt in our Nature and therefore the Spirit does as truly Lust against the Flesh and has strong Natural Motions against that as the Flesh hath against the Spirit We have the Natural Seeds of Probity good Nature Pity Charity Kindness Modesty and other Vertues sown in our Hearts and appearing in the first tender indications of undisguised Nature in Children and Infants as well as the seeds of Vice and Wickedness and all manner of Pravity and Corruption that grow up afterwards in Mens Lives There is an Original Lust and Concupiscence to Good as well as to Evil and as there is an Original Sin in our Nature in a true sense and meaning so there is an Original Righteousness still remaining in us as not only Nature and Experience but St. Pauls words here of the two Lustings of the Flesh and Spirit do plainly suppose and demonstrate But because some have thought that the first Motions of Concupiscence or the meer feeble and ineffectual Lustings and Desires of the Flesh after Evil or undue Objects is truly and properly a Sin I shall clear and consider that Point and take off the trouble that some have thereupon in their Minds 1. These meer Lustings or first Motions of Concupiscence cannot be Sin because they are Natural and result from our very Frame and Make and Constitution and as an Argument that they are so and so come from pure Mechanism of Body and the Temperament of Blood and Spirits they are the same both in us and in Brutes who have such Bodies as we have and who never were capable of Sinning or Falling or being punish'd as such Now nothing that is purely Natural can be Sinful for as such it is the work of God and part of his own Creation which he has pronounced to be good and it plainly serves such good ends and designs for the benefit of the World as God thought necessary and as are wisely appointed by him 'T is therefore making God the Author of Evil or with the Antient Hereticks making an Evil Principle to be our Creator to suppose any thing in us that is purely Natural to be Sinful 2 These Lustings and first Desires were in our first Parents before the Fall for they are only the inclination of our Animal Nature to its proper good and a suitable Object when they beheld the forbidden Fruit and saw that it was good for food and pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired Gen. 3.4 Had they gone no further but only seen it and thought it fair and lovely to the eye but checked this their Desire and Lust after it with the Consideration of Gods Prohibition and of the Punishment he had threatned against the eating of it they had not then lost their Innocence nor broken Gods Command nor incurred the grievous Penalty of it 3. Those Natural Desires and Inclinations were even in our Blessed Saviour who was in all things tempted like unto us yet without sin Heb. 4.15 Who as he increased in Wisdom and Stature and grew up as a Man so he hungred and thirsted and felt pain and was extremely sorrowful even unto Death and prayed that the bitter Cup might pass from him which all showed that he took our Nature with its Weaknesses and Infirmities upon him and that those are not Sins unless they go further and make us do something unlawful which he never did but his Vertue would not have been so great nor could he have been tempted by the Devil or rewarded by his Father for his Obedience had not he had the same Natural Desires and Inclinations that belong to Flesh and Blood 4. These first Motions are unavoidable and not under the power or command of our Will any more than such sensations and perceptions from Objects suited to such Faculties and inward Powers so that we can no more help such Motions and Desires arising from such causes than the seeing things when they are set before our Eyes or having our Ears struck with such sounds as are near us The Mind is as suddenly struck with such a Desire and Inclination from such an Object making impression upon it agreeable to its Nature and Capacity as it is by our outward Senses Indeed the Mind can judge of this afterwards and has a power to determine it self as it pleases either to choose or refuse such a Motion offered to it and this we call Will and if it does choose it and consent to it then as St. James sayes Lust hath conceived and brought forth sin James 1.15 but it is not Sin before it hath thus conceived and brought it forth and though the Action be not yet produced yet when the Mind has consented to it from thence it derives its Sinfulness and all its Blame and Guilt and there wants nothing in it self but only Power and Opportunity which are things without it to bring it into Act So that as a weight is the same though its tendency downwards be stop'd by what it lyes upon so is the pravity of the Will when it consents to an unlawful Desire though it be hindered from executing it But I shall show this further in the Second Head of Discourse namely 2ly That these Lustings and Desires of the Flesh and the Spirit are the proper tryals of our Vertue and the chief matter of our Obedience and according as either of these prevail upon us so we are fix'd in our Moral state here and our Eternal state hereafter The Flesh sollicites us with the temptations of Bodily Pleasures and Delights with the enjoyments of the Animal Life and the sensible and present good things of this World and if we choose those without regard to the Laws of Vertue and
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
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
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 Repentance and all that relates to it and have wondered that among all our Excellent Practical Treatises we should hardly have one such sitted for common use among other Reasons of which I believe this may not be the least That 't is one of the most difficult things to write on an easie Subject as t is the hardest to paint Light When I drew the Model of this and had some of the Materials lying by me and ready framed I thought the perfecting and finishing it would not have cost me half the charge and pains and expence that I found it has and most Writers I believe like Builders find this and even afterwards when they have done they see many things they could mend and alter though they care not for being at the cost of pulling down again and building up anew It was only the Strength and Vsefulness and Conveniency I had regard to and it may have those tho' like a House built by parts and not altogether it want all that regular Order and Beauty that should set it off It is to be looked on only as a Popular Discourse to teach an useful Truth in Religion and raise the Affections and Imaginations up to it without that care and exactness that is to be served in closer Writings It will fully answer its end if it can but corvey a cleare and lively an understanding and warm sence of Religion into Mens Minds and free their Thoughts from such Mistakes and their Lives from such Sins as are too prevailing in the World and which like the Sea and its Rivers proceed from and maintain and run into one another For Men's Lusts and Pices make them willing to take up with false and loose Principles in Religion and those Principles feed and promote their Vice and Looseness The Sincerity and Zeal of serving so good an end as I have had my Eye all along upon or at least of endeavouring heartily to do it hath sufficiently armed me against all manner of Censures whatsoever and hath given me more satisfaction then if I had either had the ability or could have vainly promised my self the Applause of writing the Wittiest or Learnedest Book in the World This however mean and imperfect it is as I here put into your Hands So I presume to Dedicate to the Great God and my Blessed Redeemer the best Patrons who will certainly reward those that serve them heartily praying that it it may be Serviceable to their Honour and Glory to the promoting Vertue and Religion the bringing Men off from Sin and Wickedness the Conversion and Salvation of Souls and the Turning of Sinners from the Errors of their ways unto Righteousness that so both they and I may have the Rewards promised to all such THE CONTENTS THE Introduction wherein the Mistakes about Repentance are Noted and a Distribution made of the whole Discourse Page 1 to 11. CHAP. I. Giving a full Account of the Nature of Repentance Sect. 1. Scripture Words for Repentance p. 12. Sect. 2. Kinds and Degrees of Repentance p. 15. Sect. 3. True Notion of Repentance p. 21. Sect. 4. Mental epentance imperfect without Actual p. 34. CHAP. II. The Motives to Repentance Sect. 1. Of the Enticements to Sin p. 48. Sect. 2. Motives to Repentance from Reason and the Nature of the thing p. 62. Sect. 3. Motives to Repentance from the Gospel or pecaliar to Christranity p. 80. Sect. 4. Motives to Repentance from the Consideration of Hell p. 103. Sect. 5. Other Gospel Motives to Repentance p. 122. Sect. 6. Exhortation to Repentance in order to fit and prepare us to dye p. 145. Sect. 7. Of the Fear of Death and how we are delivered from it by Repentance and Religion p. 172. CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance p. 193. Sect. 1. Of Apostacy Sins after Baptism Vpon Relapse p. 199. Sect. 2. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost its Nature and whether Fardonable or no p. 212. Sect. 3. Of Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit p. 255. Sect. 4. Of Trouble of Mind or a Wounded Spirit p. 277. CHAP. IV. The ill Consequences drawn from the Priviledge of Repentance Obviated and Prevented p. 294. CHAP. V. Of a Death-Bed Repentance Sect. 1. The Case of the Thief upon the Cross Examined p. 315. Sect. 2. The Pleas and Pretences on behalf of a Death-Bed Repentance Answered p. 336. Sect. 3. The Invalidity of a Death-Bed Repentance shown from the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins p. 358. Sect. 4. More Positive Proofs against the validity and sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance p. 392. CHAP. VI. Rules and Directions concerning the Particular Exercise of this Duty of Repentance p. 442. CHAP. VII How we may know we have repented and are in a Pardoned State p. 471. Sect. 1. Not committing Sin the only sure Mark of a good State p. 478. Sect. 2. The Differences of Sins what are and what are not consistent with a good State p. 508. Sect. 3. The Benefits of Repentance or the happiness of being in such a good State p. 535. The Conclusion p. 553. A Practical Discourse OF Repentance INTRODUCTION REpentance is the great Gospel duty which John the Baptist came Preaching as a Preparation to Christianity Matth. 3.2 Our Saviour also himself began with the same Matth. 4.17 The Disciples chose the same subject to preach on Mark 6.12 They went out and preacht that men should repent St. Peter in his Sermon to the Jews whereby he converted three thousand Souls preaches to them this Duty Acts 2.38 And this was what St. Paul testified to the Jews and to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 as if the whole summe of the Gospel lay in those two Nay our Saviour himself makes this the very end and design both of his Sufferings and of his Resurrection that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name Luke 24.46 47. It is a Duty therefore of the greatest moment and importance in Christianity and ought above all to be considered practiced and understood The only Question is Whether it be so proper and necessary to preach it to Christians now as it was at first to Jews and Gentiles The whole World then lay in wickedness and God had concluded all under sin and in a state of great corruption both as to Manners and Worship so that Christ came then as a Physitian to cure the sick and prescribed this Medicine of Repentance as proper to their case and condition at that time and tells us himself that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Matth. 9.13 But 't is to be hoped that the World is well amended under Christianity that they who have been brought up in the knowledge of that excellent Religion and been devoted to it all their lives and had all the opportunities and advantages as well as obligations
and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is commonly taken for something that goes no further than a Man 's own Mind for the inward working and change of its own Thoughts and the sorrow and trouble it conceives upon the reflection of its past Sins and the consideration of its bad state And here it is Repentance must first begin in the Mind the principle of all Moral actions its being sensible of its evil wayes and truly sorrowful and afflicted for them when its Heart is smitten within and bleeds as it were from those inward wounds it feels in its own Conscience and when it vents it self in all the sorrowful expressions of inward trouble when it weeps bitterly like St. Peter Matth. 26.75 and rivers of tears run down its eyes because it has not kept the Law of its God when it is pricked to the heart Acts 2.37 and is under very deep compunction and contrition of Soul and mourns and laments for its grievous wickedness when it is afraid of the anger and indignation of that God whom it has offended and has a just dread of those Punishments it knows it has deserved when it is under great convictions of the folly and evil of its Sins and is very sensible of the sad fruits and consequences of those things whereof it is now ashamed when it considers how little benefit and advantage it ever got by them when it committed them and to what a sad account they now turn and how that the end of them is like to be death and damnation This inward sense and godly sorrow if it continue upon the Mind and go not off like a morning dew or an hasty cloud or sudden storm will surely work repentance not to be repented of will bring it to perfect and true Repentance not only to Confession and Humiliation and afflicting its Soul by Fasting and putting on Sackcloth and Ashes which may be signs and attendants sometimes but no proper parts or acts of true Repentance but this will beget in it good purposes and resolutions of becoming better and forsaking its Sins hearty wishes that it had never committed them and sincere vows and intentions to forsake them for whilst it has that sense upon its Mind it cannot well do otherwise Now this is a very good beginning and a very good part of Repentance and it wants nothing to make it true perfect and complete but bringing forth fruits meet for repentance Matth. 3.8 Acts 26.20 that is all this having an effect upon the life and actions mending and reforming those and making them suitable and agreeable to those inward thoughts and passions of Mind that we may be not only renewed in our minds but become new men and new creatures and walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 That we may put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and may put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.22 24. That we put off the body of the sins of the flesh Coloss 2.11 That if we have yielded our members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity so now that we yield our members servants of righteousness unto holiness Rom. 6.19 That we be washed that we be cleansed 1 Cor. 6.11 That we sin no more John 5.14 That denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2.12 For Repentance is the whole practical condition of Christianity and together with Faith makes up the entire duty of a Christian as St. Paul summes it up Acts 20.21 Testifying both to the Jews and to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ That we who were enemies to God by our wicked works may be reconciled to him by Conversion and Obedience and may become holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight Coloss 1.21 22. That we being made free from sin and become servants to God may have our fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life Rom. 6.22 Which are the full and excellent descriptions which are given us in the New Testament of this Duty of Repentance which make actual Reformation and Obedience essential to it and which make it consist plainly in these two things I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quaest Athanas ascript Q. 133. de Parab 72. p. 435. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrvs Hom. 10. in Math. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aret. in 3. c. Apoc. In a relinquishing and forsaking every Sin or all the Sins we have been guilty of II. In performing and practising the Vertues contrary to those Sins In St. Peters Phrase Eschewing evil and doing good 1 Pet. 3.11 i. e. The good that is contrary to the former evil I. A reliquishing and forsaking every Sin or all the Sins we have been guilty of We must first break off the practice of those and cease from any one act of them and so we shall by degrees break the strength and force of them upon our Minds For as all habits grow upon us by many repeated acts which are like so many strokes as it were beating upon the Mind that do form and fashion it into such a habit and disposition so when this force and impression is taken off the habit will grow more weak and languid and the Mind will be able to recover and unbend it self from it Let us then resolutely cease from acting and certainly if any thing be in our power our outward actions are and we shall find that the most habitual Sin will fade and wither as being without that recruit which should feed and nourish it for all Habits grow by new and repeated acts as a Tree by the accession of new sap into its branches and if they be not supplyed with these they will decay and dye of themselves If we can but put a little stop to our Lusts in their violent career and check but a few acts of them this will keep them from being so unruly and ungovernable till in time we may wholly master and conquer them The Sinner must first keep himself from the outward act from touching the unclean thing wherewith he was defiled he must refrain his feet from every evil way and go on no further in a wrong path that so he may return into the wayes of Vertue If his Repentance does not make him break off every Transgression and keep him back from every Sin and restrain him from the commission of what he was formerly guilty of though it makes him never so much troubled and dissatisfied with what he does though he commits it with never so much reluctancy and is never so sorrowful for it after he has done it yet if he still commits it and repeats it when a Temptation is offered to him he is very far from true Repentance and let him be never so unwillingly drag'd to it so that the evil which he doth he would not let him
Repentance they are far from being perfect or indeed true Repentance * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. in Isa c. 30. For all these may be in most Sinners and yet they continue still in their Sins and be never the better for them in their lives And there are very few Sinners I believe that have not these now and then in their Minds and do not sometimes repent after this fashion they are often convinced of their evil courses and their Consciences accuse them for their Sins and they find a great deal of trouble and disquiet in themselves upon the account of them and they cannot but look back upon what they have done with sorrow and trouble and with some kind of dread and fear and when they bethink themselves they know they are in a bad state and they cannot but be melancholly and dissatisfied with themselves and have some faint wishes that they had done otherwise and some short and ineffectual purposes and resolutions to live otherwise sometime hereafter and to become better at some convenient season but before that comes the Temptation is again offered the Sin and the Company invites the melancholly and the thoughtful mood is gone off the dark and gloomy and cloudy weather that hung over his Soul is cleared up and dispersed and the Man falls to his Sins as fresh and as briskly as ever and he is never the better for that short fit of Repentance that came upon him It is quickly gone off and he is rid of his Sorrow and his good Purposes but not at all of his Sins And though it should happen again to return upon him as it will indeed and he cannot well prevent it yet he can put it off again by the same means and can be wicked still for all these fits and qualms of Conscience that are apt now and then to come over his Mind the Man is not made much better by all these but his Sins still prevail upon him and he still commits them and is by no means brought off from them As long as he is not how little he can be said to Repent I shall now shew by examining all those parts of Repentance without this 1. Let 's consider the Sinner in sorrow and tears for his Sins and in some trouble and contrition of Mind for them This the Apostle assures us is not perfect Repentance 't is not the thing it self but 't is that which is only a likely and a good means to produce it Godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.10 but if it do not work that if it do not bring a Man to repent and leave his Sins though he lament and weep over them and when he is fall'n into any foul Sin do only childishly cry over it and not wash and make himself clean as the Prophet expresses it Isa 1.16 and put away the evil of his doings when he is thus troubled for them he is but little the better for all his sorrow and all his tears are but feigned and hypocritical without that Though he is sorry for his Sins yet he will not part with them but he still retains so much love for them that through his very tears he still looks kindly upon them and will by no means leave them He is rather sorry that he cannot keep them with more content and satisfaction to himself but yet keep them he will however troublesome and uneasie they may be now and then to him Like Herod who was exceeding sorry that he must gratifie his Herodias in what she required of him Mark 6.26 but yet he did it for all his sorrow Men may see reason upon some account to be sorry for their Sins there are some considerations that will alwayes trouble their Minds in the commission of them there are some evils and inconveniences that do unavoidably attend them but yet there are other considerations of pleasure or profit or the like that do still prevail over those and so make them commit them And though they are sorry after they have done them as 't is very hard to suppose they should not yet there are other things that still overcome them and the Temptation of something else notwithstanding this is too hard and powerful for them Sin cannot be brought forth without some pangs and uneasiness after it but yet the fancied pleasure inclines the Sinner to return again to it and though he finds and experiences some bitterness in it after he has swallowed it yet the sweet morsel is so pleasant to him that he will not refuse or abstain from it for all that And thus what is a Man the better for all his sorrow who is only sorry that he cannot sin without some trouble but yet is still resolved to sin with it and after all his pretended sorrow for his Sins is so well pleased with them that he yet lives in them Repentance is not the meer dropping a few brackish tears over our Sins or venting a few hollow and empty sighs upon the remembrance of them but 't is an actual leaving and forsaking of them which is the only sign that we are sorry for them in good earnest 2. A Man may be under great conviction of Mind of the evil of Sin and of the ill state he is in as well as great remorse and compunction of Heart for it and yet not have true and perfect Repentance For most Sinners have that some time or other unless they are perfectly hardened and brought to a senselesness of Mind and a stupidity of Conscience They cannot but sin with some remorse and have some twitches and vellications of Conscience and condemn that in their Minds which yet they may practice in their Lives Few Men can go on so easily and comfortably in their Sins but their Consciences will sometimes fly in their faces and rise up against them And this is so far from lessening or abating them that 't is one of the greatest aggravations of the guilt of them if they still continue thus to commit them against their Consciences and against the inward sense of their own Minds No Man that does in the least consider but must know what a sad and desperate state he is in whilst he is wicked and impenitent but 't is not the meer knowing and being sensible of this will bring him out of it no more than a Man that is sick and finds an inward weakness within him or that feels himself mortally wounded must by so doing become well and be immediately cured This in all reason should make him presently use all means he can to be so But 't is not the meer sense of his danger that makes him safe it should awaken him to do all he can to avoid it and when he sees it so plainly before him not to venture into it with his eyes open But 't is plain that most Sinners do this they know their Sins lead to the paths of Death and that their wayes tend
to Misery and Destruction and yet they are still so mad as to walk in them and therefore they are said in Scripture to love death and to choose destruction because they love and choose that which they know and are sensible will bring those The charms of Vice do so fascinate and bewitch them that they take down the pleasant Poyson and eat of the forbidden Fruit though they know they are both deadly and there Lusts have such power over them that they will still cleave to them tho' they know they shall perish in their embraces So that if Men be never so sensible of their danger and never so much convicted of their ill state by reason of their Sins yet if this does not make them leave them 't is a sign they love them so well that they will boldly venture all for them and never be brought to part with them whatever shall come of it But 3. A Sinner may sometimes resolve and purpose to leave his Sins and that very sincerely too and yet his Repentance may not be perfect for the thing is not done by a Mans meer resolving to do it though never so sincerely And Repentance is a different thing from a Mans resolving to repent A Man may be very Poor who resolves to be Rich and very Ignorant who resolves to be a Scholar and though the thing be never so much in his power yet till he does that which he resolves he may be in the same condition he was in before His resolution indeed may put him upon doing the thing he resolves but till he does it he is where he was As a Man that is out of his way and resolves upon finding he is so to turn back and to betake himself to the right path This his resolution does but at the most stop him in his wrong course and till he does really turn and go back and get into the right way according as he resolved he is in the wrong way still Resolution is a good principle of acting and necessary to put a Man upon it but till we really act upon it 't is not our resolution to do the thing is doing it and God I am sure requires us to Repent and not only to resolve to do it It would be very happy if a Sinner could be brought thus far to resolve in good earnest to Repent there would be then great hopes of him but he must do more than resolve or else he is not much the better There are many idle and hasty and ungrounded Resolvers who do very heartily and sincerely as they think purpose and intend to leave their Sins especially upon their Beds of Sickness and when they are under some present Judgment or the fear of Death but when these are over their resolutions are so too so that there is but little regard to be made of Mens resolutions unless they are put into act and made good by a subsequent course of actions without this no Man can tell whether the temper and habit of his Mind be altered and whether it be not a sudden thought newly started in his Mind which his awakened Reason for the present suggests to him and so he yields to it rather than a lasting Principle that will dwell upon his Soul and make a lasting impression upon his Will and Affections For Mens Reason may be perswaded for a little time when they only consult with that but they will be quickly drawn off from that when their Lusts and Affections are again taken in and the stubborn Will will be quickly too hard for the weak Understanding Hence it is that a Sinner so often changes his Mind and he resolves sometimes to be good from the short conviction of his Reason but is quickly bad again from the prevalency of his Lusts and Affections So that it requires some time and several acts to fix and settle a Mans own Mind and it is impossible it can be changed and altered by a sudden resolution without some tryal and many repeated acts that shall keep it to what it resolves it must stand bent as it were that way some time till its resolution become habitual or else it will be apt to restore it self again by a kind of Elasticity and a motion of restitution to its former temper and inclinations When the Will has grown crooked by a long custom and habit of Sin it will not be set streight again by a sudden resolution that may a little bend it the other way for a time but it will return again to its former position unless it be kept right by many new acts that bring it by degrees to a new habit If a Mans Mind indeed were fully changed and he that had a bad Mind before had now a good one this I should not doubt but would make him happy and be true Repentance But there goes more to do this than a sudden resolution The old habits of Sin must be driven out and they must be driven out the same way that they came in that is by contrary acts and by a long course of other practices they must be unwound or unravell'd as it were by degrees and the Mind cannot get loose from them but by this course and therefore it must not only resolve within it self but it must make good and confirm and strengthen its resolution by frequent practices or else it can neither attain to any habit of goodness nor break off from a habit of wickedness The wayes of Vertue and Vice are not so near to one another that a Man may take a sudden jump out of the one into the other by a sudden resolution but they are like two contrary wayes that a Man who is got into one must go back again and take over a great many steps before he gets into the other And as I said before 't is not his resolving that he will do this which sets him in the other way but he must walk back as well as resolve and he must move and keep on till he comes right Meer resolving is at most no more than turning his face t'other way but if he only does so and stands idly resolving he will be but little the nearer to his journeys end And to be sure if he goes back again and breaks his resolutions and sometimes walks one way and sometimes the other as many a Sinner does who is uncertainly divided between his good and his bad resolutions and sometimes follows one and sometimes the other he is very far from true Repentance to make which there must be nothing less than an actual forsaking of every Sin and an amendment of every evil way which are fruits meet for repentance or the worthy fruits of Repentance which both John the Baptist and St. Paul speak of CHAP. II. The Motives to Repentance HAving described the Nature and fixt the true Notion of Repentance which is laying the foundation of Repentance in St. Pauls Phrase Heb. 6.1 on which after the old
Rubbish is taken away a good Life should be built and all the goodly structure of Christian Vertues should be erected I come now to propose the Motives and Encouragements to perswade us to this great Duty and they are as many and as great as there are obligations to Vertue and Religion and disswasives from Vice and Wickedness For Repentance is but a Return to Vertue and Leaving Sin and tho' the passage from one to the other may not be so pleasant and delightful but like the Israelites we must pass through a Wilderness through a vale of Sorrow and a course of Contrition and Humiliation yet Vertue is the happy Land flowing with delights and all manner of good things and Vice is a more than Egyptian Servitude and Slavery which he is mad that will not get out of or that any way hankers again after it or after the Garlick and Onions the sordid pleasures and enjoyments of it I shall first examine the Temptations and Enticements to Sin and expose the false Reasonings and Arguments by which Men are drawn into that then offer the Motives and greater Arguments to Repentance both from the Nature and Reason of the thing and from the Gospel or Christianity SECT I. Of the Enticements to Sin THe Enticements and temptations to Sin and Wickedness are so great and many that if we should judge of them by the effect and power which they have upon Mankind they are much stronger than the Motives and Arguments to Vertue and a good Life for we see they prevail upon more than the other do Whole crowds follow the one and are drawn by them into the broad way of Vice whilst Vertue has but a small party who walk in her narrow path and are perswaded to keep closely to it Now surely there must be some mighty and powerful charms in Vice that make it so generally take with most Men there must be some secret and prevailing Reasons that bring them over and engage them so firmly on that side and make Vertue so generally forsaken and deserted Men are Rational Creatures and free Agents that have a power to consider and choose what is best for them what tends most to please and delight and make them happy and they must be greatly imposed upon if they choose that which tends only to make them miserable God sets Life and Death before them as Moses before the Jews Deut. 30.15 and it must be great madness to choose the worser part and what one would think it impossible for any man to do if his Reason were not cheated and deceived with false appearances of good in it and it were not represented to him in such a false light and such false colours as made it seem quite otherwise then it is in its own Nature For no Man can choose Evil as Evil naked in it self and with its own ugliness and deformity about it but it must be drest up under the show of Good and painted and decked up in a meretricious dress to hide its Native and abominable Filthiness Mens Imaginations must be deluded and so their Reason deceived and imposed upon by the Temptations to Sin and there must be a great many false reasonings used to entice them to it or else so many who have thoughts about them and who cannot do any thing without thinking some way or other could never be drawn over to consent to it and to commit it Now the chief Delusions and false Reasonings and Perswasions by which Men are drawn into Sin for there must be some such process in their Minds are such as these following 1. They see and feel the present Good of their Sins and the after Evil is so uncertain or so remote that they know not what to think of it and so are not much influenced by it for they think it unreasonable to part with the present Pleasure and the certain Profit which their Sins afford them for an unknown and unseen and unconceived Pleasure and Happiness they know not when or where they find and feel most Vices very grateful to their Natural Appetites and outward Senses and they are not such fools as to be perswaded out of those nor to put a force and restraint upon Nature and its proper enjoyments Vertue tyes them up to such severe and hard and unnatural restraints as they cannot endure its Mortifications and Self-denyals are very uneasie to Flesh and Blood and they look upon its Rules and Precepts as the morose dictates of peevish and melancholly Men who cannot so well enjoy what others do and therefore talk against the liberties and freedoms of Humane Nature and fright Men from the pleasures and enjoyments of Sin here with the terrours of another World and imaginary dangers hereafter Is it then so very certain that Vice is so pleasant here So desirable and comfortable upon the account of present enjoyment and that its punishment hereafter is so unknown and uncertain That 't is not to be taken into consideration nor worth being more minded than it is by these Sinners do they never think of dying or are they possessed with such a frenzy as to hope they shall live alwayes or that three or fourscore years will never be run out though few live so long and they perhaps have lived above half that time and see how quickly it is gone and then will any Man in his wits venture to be miserable for ever for the Pleasures or Profits of Sin which are but for a season were they never so great If there were a much greater uncertainty about another World then there is yet who would run so dreadful a hazard who would put so great a matter to such a dangerous venture Were not the evidence we have of a future state from Nature from Revelation from the Resurrection of Christ nay from the belief of all Mankind so strong as it is so that not only whatever the Jews or the Christians have believed and witnessed down through all Ages must pass for a fable if it be not true but what all Wise Men have ever believed about a God and Religion must be a meer dream and chimaera Yet however no Man can ever be sure but that there is another World he can have no positive proof or demonstration that there is not and were there no more in it but that there may be such a thing which the greatest Atheist or Sceptical Infidel cannot pretend to deny yet this might be enough to keep him from running upon so dreadful though meerly possible danger and exposing himself to such extream but irrecoverable mischief especially for the poor and pitiful temptations of Sin at present For alas however pleasant and delightful they may imagine them yet they are generally mistaken and there is more true pleasure and comfort a thousand times to be found in a Life of Vertue and Religion than in the most tempting Wickedness and the most gustful Sensuality For which yields most present pleasure and comfort of Life
a sound and healthful Body a fair and good Reputation a quiet and easie Mind or a shattered and rotten Carkass a scandalous and infamous Life a guilty and disordered and distracted Conscience Are not most of the pleasures of Sin not only short but sickly That have a sharp and poysonous sting hid under all their sweetness so that however they go off to the Palate yet they are very bitter after they are gone down whereas the pleasures of Vertue are clear and pure and lasting not mixt with any of those dregs which foul and embitter Sin but purified from all the sediment and the lees that are at the bottom of Sensuality and Wickedness Religion does not deny us any truly Natural and proper Pleasure and Enjoyment but only keeps us within the bounds of Innocency and Vertue within which compass a Man may enjoy all the Pleasure that he can wish or was made for It does not by its Rules of Mortification and Self-denyal destroy or cut off any Natural Appetite or true part of us that is not the meaning of cutting off a right Hand or plucking out a right Eye Matth. 5.29 30. but only to destroy the unnatural Excesses to cut off the vitious Corruptions to take away the depraved and inordinate Affections and Lusts that will grow too strong and unruly without a wife conduct and government of our selves by the rules of Vertue and the restraints of Reason and Religion and would any Man think fit to have those let loose and have the reins thrown upon their neck without any check or controul Will he complain of the severity of Religion and the loss of his Natural Freedom by the restraints of morose and peevish Vertue as he calls it if he be not allowed the full swinge of his Lusts and the gratifying of his immoderate Passions and Desires in all manner of instances Then adieu not only to the government of Vertue and Religion but the government of all Humane Laws and Worldly Wisdom which for the conveniency of this World and the Peace Quiet and Comfort of this present Life has thought fit to keep Mens Lusts and Passions within such bounds under the severest penalties and to prohibit the same Sins under the punishments of this World that God has done under the far greater punishments of another for nothing is more pernicious and destructive to the welfare of a Kingdom as well as of particular Men then Licentiousness and Debauchery which besides the immediate Judgments of God upon it does by its own Nature bring a thousand present Miseries and known Evils along with it besides the unknown and unspeakable Miseries that attend it in another World Can any Sinner deny this when he seriously thinks and considers of it Does not his own observation and his own experience by which I hope he will be instructed if by nothing else teach him that this is the Nature of Sin That as 't is a common pest and plague to the World and to Mankind in general so 't is generally a disease to his Body a moth and canker to his Estate and a worm to his Conscience Whereas Vertue is health and soundness to his Body life to his Soul and grace to his Neck as the Wise Man observes That length of dayes are in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour That she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaineth her Prov. 3.16 17 18 22. This true Notion of Vertue which is not an empty Panegyrick but a strict Truth founded in Nature that will alwayes be true of it and that all Wise Men will find to be so this will sufficiently answer the first and greatest Temptation by which Sin entices and allures unthinking Men with the bait of present Pleasures and Enjoyments But 2. The next greatest Temptation to Sin is that of Example which is so strong and powerful that few can resist it who love to be modish and in the fashion as too many Vices generally are and therefore are more taking upon that account and lose their reproach and shame due to them by the great party and number they have on their side which otherwise would sneak and be confounded if they stood alone but when so many are brought over to them others follow if it be only for company and many Men are drawn in even contrary to their inclinations by the Example of others because 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 they shall fare as well as they and escape all the seeming dangers of their Sins both here and hereafter as well as the rest of their Neighbours or the great number of their fellow Sinners Now this however common and powerful it be yet is the most unreasonable thing in the World for is any Man in another case willing to be sick or to dye for company Is any 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 a general infection and because so many of his Neighbours or his Acquaintance have dyed 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 others soever lost them had they as just and terrible apprehensions of their own Damnation as they have of their dying this 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 To hear their hideous cryes and tortures and lamentations will not abate their own but rather increase them therefore the Rich Man in the Parable Luke 16.28 did not desire the company of his Brethren there but rather sought to prevent their coming into that place of torment The Devils indeed from the unaccountable malice of their Nature tempt others to be as wicked and as miserable as themselves and every one does their work who entices another to any Sin but this will not ease their pains but augment them by adding more mischief and so more guilt to them No Man who knows what it is to be happy but must wish to be so tho' he were alone and no Man who knows that Vertue alone is the way to be happy but must choose to be Vertuous though 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 so precise if it be in the great
he feels an inward strength and vigour in himself and the constant springs of joy and comfort rising up in his own breast and overflowing his Soul But Vice sneaks and is cowardly and fills a Man with fear and confusion and all the mean and little and uneasie and tormenting Passions that belong to Humane Nature Vertue approves it self to our Reason and agrees with the native sense of our own Minds and has a Natural beauty and loveliness that commends it to our first sight and apprehension and makes it amiable and desirable esteemed and honoured and admired by every one even by those who forsake it who cannot but be so just to it as to commend and approve it very often in others But Vice has a Natural ugliness and deformity that makes Men ashamed of it after they have committed it and commit it in darkness and obscurity and after to deny and extenuate it as being presently sensible of the folly and undecency and unreasonableness of it as having done what they cannot justifie and what presently flyes in their faces if they have not a brow of Brass and a forehead of Steel It is contrary and awry to our own Nature and against the first sense and tenderness of our own Minds so that great violence must be used to commit it at first and great pain follows upon it 'T is a force a Rape upon the Virgin-modesty and the Natural sense of Good and Evil that we are born with Vertue has alwayes very good and desirable effects upon us in this Life as well as great Rewards in another 'T is in the Wise Mans Phrase and in a true literal sense Health to our navel and marrow to our bones Prov. 3.8 It keeps our Bodies in good plight neither drains or exhausts them with forced Pleasures or unruly Passions nor choaks or suffocates them with immoderate loads nor drowns and washes them away with floods of drink and cups of intemperance It brings a Blessing of God upon our Estates and often makes us Rich by the help of Industry and Frugality whilst nothing is so expensive and so impoverishing as Vice which spends many times all upon its Lusts and the hungry Wolf comes often to the door where the Swine and the Goat have been used to dwell Though Vertue may not alwayes bring abundance neither is it desirable alwayes to a wise Man though Solomon puts Riches as the common Blessing in the left hand of Wisdom Prov. 3.16 yet it makes a little that the righteous hath better than great riches of the ungodly Ps 37.16 Honour and a good Name do more certainly belong to Vertue than Riches and whilst Vice brings a blot and a reproach upon a Mans Credit Vertue makes him loved and honoured and esteemed by all that know him while he lives and embalms his Name when he is dead and makes his Memory to be precious But above all it makes a Man truly easie and happy within himself it secures him the peace and tranquillity of his own Mind which is the greatest happiness in the World So that all Natural Good and all that is desirable to Humane Nature growes as a proper Fruit out of Vertue which is the true Root that Naturally brings forth all Good as Sin does all Evil and these are so annexed to them by the nature and constitution of things as effects to their proper causes that nothing can cut them off or precide them and these besides all the super-added Motives of revealed Religion are by plain Reason and observation of things very strong Arguments to bring Men off from Vice to Vertue i. e. to true Repentance 4. Therefore Fourthly A wise Man when he comes to reflect and consider finds that that which hindered him from seeing all this before was only his foolish Lusts and his corrupt senfual Inclinations and his strong Passions and violent and unreasonable Appetites which blinded his Reason and clouded his Judgment and darkened his Understanding and besotted intoxicated and bewitched him i. e. by some unaccountable wayes hindered him from discerning and considering these things which are so plain and evident and therefore the reason why he before chose Vice and forsook Vertue was because he did not see and consider this nor was so truly convinced of the Evil of Sin and the Good of Vertue but now he has quite other thoughts and apprehensions about them and therefore he is changed in his Will and his Affections by this change wrought in his Mind and his Understanding and this being a lasting and effectual change upon all the inward principles of action has a necessary influence upon his outward actions that are alwayes moved and turned by those inward springs and wheels within us for though a Man is still at liberty and is under no force and compulsion from without but acts freely from within himself yet his Will will follow the last dictate of his Understanding and he will not choose Evil as Evil when he apprehends it to be so and he must some way have his Reason corrupted and judge falsly and erroneously before he will practice so Omnis peccans ignorat If he has a true and lively sense of the Good of Vertue abiding upon his Mind he will not choose Vice again 'T is this sense I doubt not confirms the blessed Spirits above and will do the Souls of all good Men in Heaven when they see and know this so perfectly that 't will be impossible for them to fall but now we see things darkly and judge weakly and often change and alter our Minds as not having such a clear view of things nor attending so closely to the dictates of impartial Reason but our thoughts are often lured off by the temptations of the Flesh and our Minds hearken but to one side to the false reasonings and suggestions of the Devil and our own Lusts or are surprized with the sudden importunity of a temptation before they can recollect themselves Else no Man could say Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor for we cannot but love and choose Good when we apprehend it and hate and abhor Evil when it is visible and naked to us We must therefore strip Vice of its disguise and its false colours and wash off its paint and meretricious charmes and see it as it is in its deformity and ugliness and in the miserable and sad consequences of it and then we shall hate that which we once loved and throw away the gilded poyson and shake the smooth and shining Viper off of our hands and cast the rotten curtizan from our armes and embraces We shall be ashamed that we were so cheated and imposed upon so deluded by the deceitfulness of sin that we were so weak as to be governed by our mean passions and low inclinations which are the imperfection and the soft side of our Nature and that we should not live up to that Reason which is proper to us and distinguishes us from brutes that we
They might have some faint hopes and probable surmizes and small expectations of this from his Natural Goodness as Malefactors may presume and hope such a thing from the temper and disposition of a good Governour but they could not necessarily conclude it or be any way ascertained of it They might have such an uncertain encouragement to hope this as the Men of Niniveh had Jonah 3.9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not and this was as high as Mens hopes could rise without a Revelation of Gods pardoning them upon Repentance Their Repentance indeed was the most likely means to turn away his fierce Anger and the best thing they could do but they could not be certain that this would succeed and be effectual but in their greatest Humiliation and Mourning and Fasting they must with a doubtful Heart and a trembling Hand offer their Petitions to Heaven as a condemned Prisoner does to his angry Judge or incensed Prince not knowing whether he will vouchsafe to hearken to it or so much as to cast his eye upon it The greatest incouragement to Repentance is our being sure that it will obtain our Pardon and restore us certainly to Favour and set us right in the Court of Heaven and since we that know this can yet very hardly be perswaded to a Duty that is not so very pleasant or so very easie with what disadvantages must those who knew not this be brought to it with what desponding fears and uncertain hopes must the Prodigal Luke 15. take a weary journey and return home to his Fathers house who knew not whether he should be admitted or no when he came there with what a doubtful and perplexed Mind with what weary paces and dispirited motions must he take every step thither when he could not tell what he should meet with at his journeys end but had too much reason to fear he should for ever be cast out and excluded as he might have been by his good Father and this must be the case of the most penitent Sinner and of all Mankind when without a Revelation they had no assurance of Pardon though upon their Repentance but only an uncertain hope and presumption of it but now the greatest Sinner who has lived never so prodigally and wickedly has a thousand times greater incouragements to return and leave off all his vicious and riotous courses of living because he is most certainly assured that if he does so his Heavenly Father will receive him with open arms and the heartiest embraces and treat him as kindly and indulgently as if he had served him many years neither had transgrest at any time his commandment ver 29. In a word we have the same incouragements to repent and leave our Sins now under the Gospel as Rebels have to come in and lay down their Arms when there is a Proclamation of Pardon and an Act of Indemnity past to all that do so whereas before there was only an uncertain presumption of the Princes Mercy which they could not be sure of without a Revelation 2. We have not only Pardon given us upon promise now but granted upon a most valuable consideration and founded upon a full Expiation of Guilt and Atonement of Sin by a Sacrifice the most perfect Sacrifice of the Son of God and so purchased for us and made over to us by a Covenant established and confirmed by the Blood of Christ Pardon of Sin is so great a thing so Princely and so singular a favour the greatest Act indeed that a Prince can do and 't is so desirable so comfortable to a poor Criminal than which nothing in the World can be more valuable to him that it can never be too well assured to us and we can never be too much satisfied in it Guilt is alwayes so fearful and timorous so terrible and so uneasie a thing 't is such a heavy load and burden lying upon a Mans Mind such a deep wound upon the tenderest part of a Mans Soul that like a prick upon a Nerve it puts the whole Man into convulsions and agonies and fills him with unexpressible pains and tortures There is no such rack no such Hell indeed as what is set up and kindled in a Man 's own breast by his guilty Conscience when he is haunted by his own Sins as so many Hellish Fiends and lasht by them like so many snaky Furies that poyson and sting him to the very Heart and his own fears of Vengeance and future Punishment represent sad and frightful images like to so many Specters alwayes appearing before his Mind and therefore there is no such comfort as that which delivers us from Guilt no such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or blessed news as what our Saviour pronounces to a Sinner by the Gospel Son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee there is no such anodine as that which plucks out the sting of Sin and takes away the pains and the smartings of a wounded Conscience that which does this puts not only Oyl into the Wounds but new Life into the fainting Soul 't is like taking a Man off from the Rack or the Wheel and giving him more ease than he feels when he has just voided a Stone after a sharp fit And therefore the Remedy that does this is the most choice the most precious and valuable thing in the World What that is we now know by the Gospel but Mankind could not know by Natural Light what would expiate Sin and certainly take away Guilt and therefore the Heathens though they tryed all means by their Lustrations Sacrifices Purgations and other ways for the sense of their Guilt put them upon all attempts to get rid of it yet they could never find what would certainly do it but must be still fearful and melancholly under their acknowledged Guilt and unattoned Crimes Whether thousand of rams or ten thousand rivers of oyl would be accepted as a price of their Sins they could not tell or whether it would not cost more to redeem a Soul whether if they brought their first-born and offered the fruit of their Bodies for the sin of their Souls or offered up their own Blood as was sometimes done 't would be effectual was very uncertain but there was nothing they thought too dear it seems nothing however cruel either to themselves or others that they would stick at in hopes to accomplish this The most barbarous and inhumane superstition of the Heathen World in offering up their Children to Molech in offering the Sacrifices of Men which was no unusual thing among them arose from the great streight and the great darkness they were in as to the expiation of Guilt and the atonement of Sin which was so dreadful so painful that they could not bear it and yet knew not how to remove it But now God be thanked we have that which should chear up our Spirits and put us upon a hearty
imperfection of our Nature gratifying a low passion a foolish humour a silly custom acting in opposition to Reason and doing things quite contrary to our own wise and calm thoughts but by rashness and inconsideration doing that which we shall afterwards repent of and condemn our selves for and wish we had never done and what we know will tend more to our mischief and prejudice than any real good to us only it pleases our fancy and tickles our senses and is a little grateful to us at present so that 't is a sort of Childishness and want of Understanding and of Manly and Rational Government of our selves to yield to it and be overcome by it this it must appear to any thinking Man to a Heathen and Philosopher that considered the nature of things and the difference of Good and Evil that arose from thence and therefore that to repent of it was as necessary as for a Man to act wisely and reasonably not to do what is weak and foolish below the Nature and the Reason of a Man but now Christ besides all this has represented Sin in more ugly and frightful characters by the Gospel as that which had thrown all Mankind into the most miserable and lost condition as the work of the Devil which he came to destroy as the device and stratagem of evil and malicious Spirits to destroy us so that whenever we are drawn into Sin we are drawn in by the Devil and used as tools by cunning infernal Fiends who this way over-reach us and sport themselves in our ruine and destruction so that when we think we are enjoying our Pleasures and gratifying our Lusts and using the freedoms and liberties of Humane Nature we are but inveigled by those Devils with the baits they lay for us and the snares they every where set to entrap us and are meer slaves and properties to their cunning and cursed designs upon us so that Christ came to rescue us from those by calling us to Repentance to rescue us from the snares of the Devil and redeem us from that servitude and slavery whereby we are led captive by him Christianity better acquaints us also with the Nature of Sin and the Evils of it than Nature could by showing us the ruins it had made upon Mankind and the cost and expences Heaven was at to repair Humane Nature by letting us see the wretched and miserable estate the Sins of Mankind had thrown them into irrecoverably without a Saviour Our Salvation by that stupendous and mysterious way makes the greatness of our danger and the mischief of our Sins more evidently known to us and the whole scheme and contrivance of it contains other considerations against Sin than Natural Religion could ever have known or suggested for by this Sin appears further to be so malignant and hateful to God so detestable and odious in his sight and so contrary to his wise Government of the World that he would not pardon it without the Blood of his own Son shed as an atonement for it nor forgive it to Mankind without such a valuable compensation and satisfaction made for it as that was Now this demonstrates to us above any thing its abominable and displeasing Nature to God and that according to the wise Rules and Maximes of his Government by which he manages the World it must suffer and be severely punished and that there was no escaping of this but by an extraordinary contrivance of Divine Wisdom and Mercy which found out a way by Jesus Christ to save Sinners by Repentance Sin is a greater debt a more deep provocation to Heaven a more horrid affront to Divine Power and Authority a more considerable injury to the good of the World and to the Justice and Holiness of God than to be easily forgiven and passed by as we find by the mystery of our Redemption and the dispensation of Christianity which shows us above any thing the Nature and Evil of it and consequently the great Reasons of our Repenting from it 5. As the Nature and Evil of Sin fo the Consequences and Punishments of it are greater by Christianity and Christ by the threatning of those greater Judgments upon it has called us more loudly to Repentance Nature and the light of Reason taught all Mankind the present and Natural Evils that were like so many Curses cleaving to Sin like Hercules his poysoned shirt clinging to it and sticking fast about it God had annexed a world of evils and mischievous effects to Vice and Wickedness by the original settlement and fundamental constitution of things it was a disease to the Mind and a torment to the Conscience and very often a disease to the Body and rottenness to the Bones a wound to a Mans Credit and a blemish to his good Name and an enemy to all his Interests and to all his Happiness in this World These plain and necessary effects of Sin Mankind could not but observe as so many bitter Fruits naturally growing out of it as from a proper Root and like so many plagues sent from Heaven steeming out of this Pandora's box And these Natural Punishments of Sin and the other as Natural Goods and Rewards of Vertue were the true sanction of the Law of Nature But besides all these there are a thousand times greater and more additional evils superadded to our Sins by Christianity if we do not in time Repent of them there are the positive and eternal evils of Sin in another World for I can by no means call the Torments of Hell Natural which God has revealed to us by the Gospel How little these were known to the World before I might show from the odd fancies of the wisest Heathens about the transmigration of Souls and the revolution of all things within such a period of years and whatever guess they had rather than belief of Punishments for Sin in another World yet that they should be so great as the Scripture now represents them and that they should be Eternal which is the most dreadful part of them this can only be known from the Revelation and Will of God who may continue our being and lengthen or shorten our duration to what time he pleases and therefore as Christ has brought Life and Immortality to light by the gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 so in like manner he has brought Hell and Damnation and revealed such intolerable and greater Punishments to Sin than the World knew before as cannot but fright the most daring Sinner and make the fondest Sensualist part with his Lusts when he considers that all their tempting charms and enticing gayety and momentany pleasures shall end in nothing but Hellish torments unquenchable flames and eternal howlings and gnashings of teeth which must be owned to be a thousand times greater than all the known and visible and Natural Evils of Sin SECT IV. Motives to Repentance from the Consideration of Hell NOW because this is the greatest determent from Sin imaginable and consequently the
and the folly of it is so visible and so amazing that no Man of common Prudence no Man in his wits one would think should neglect to do it 'T is so important so weighty so absolutely necessary a Duty that our Saviour most earnestly presses it in several Discourses and proposes it in two or three Parables that it may make a more strong and lively impression upon our Minds In the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins Mat. 25. at the beginning where the coming of the Son of Man is compared to the unexpected coming of the Bridegroom at midnight ver 6. in others to a Masters surprizing his Servants unaware at the second or third watch Luke 12.38 Matth. 24. at the latter end and in both the Evangelists to a Thief stealing upon a Man at an unknown and uncertain hour of the night The design of all which is to press this great Duty upon us of being alwayes watchful and alwayes doing our Duty and alwayes prepared for our Lords coming This is the Inference which Christ draws from all those Parables and Discourses Be ye therefore ready for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not Luke 12.40 Christ often calls himself the Son of Man and as such he is to be our Judge and as a Judge he is said to come when ever he passes Judgment upon us and therefore St. James represents the nearness of his Judgment by that phrase Behold the judge standeth before the door Jam. 5.9 and his executing Judgment and Destruction upon Jerusalem was called his coming Matth. 24.3 And as his final publick Judgment of all the World at the last day is called his coming 1 Cor. 15.23 and several times in that Chapter of St. Matthew so his private Judging of us at our Death is his coming also meant by these several Parables and for that coming of his we ought to be always ready i. e. always prepared for dying Here I shall show I. That this Readiness or Preparation consists only in Repentance and a holy Life as the fruit and perfection of it II. The great obligations we have to be alwayes thus ready and prepared for Death I. This Readiness or Preparation for Death consists only in Repentance and a good Life as the fruit of it For nothing else can fit us to dye but to Repent and live well neither can there be any other readiness and preparation for Death but only that For we must not imagine that we can be ready on a sudden and that though we were utterly unprepared before that at a few days or hours warning we can make our selves ready and fit to dye No our whole Life at least a considerable part of it is to be spent in making our selves ready for we must not think that our Souls can like our Bodies be drest in a few moments or that we can be fit to meet the Bridegroom when he calls us in hast and on a sudden Vertuous habits are not put on in a moment nor can vitious ones be so easily and quickly cast off as our cloaths are no rather like Diseases that are chronical and have by long time been growing upon us they require long time and great care and much pains and many remedies and a timely course before they can be cured and got off and before we can be well and so ready to meet the Lord. 'T is not a few penitential tears upon a Death-bed will wash away the filth of a wicked Life or cleanse a guilty and polluted Soul that has been many years contracting an habitual uncleanness whose Sins stick to it like an old Leprosie and have eat like rust or a canker into the very heart and substance of it and yet they must be all got out by Repentance and the Soul must be made sound and clear and recover it self into a vertuous and good habit before it can be ready for another World and duly prepared for a Future State Indeed there is a great difference to be made according to the past course of Mens lives there may be a great many such happy Souls who by a very careful Education and the good Example of their Parents and others and by a Vertuous disposition and inclination in themselves and above all by the Grace and Providence of God have been alwayes kept from great and mortal Sins and so never fell into a bad and damnable state all their lives but were alwayes vertuous and innocent as to any such offences as should forfeit and endanger their Salvation by the terms of the Gospel and the Covenant of Grace without that we were all in a damnable state and the Scripture hath concluded all under sin without that Gal. 3.22 For we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God and of that strict and exact Obedience which we owe to the Law of God so that if he should enter into Judgment with us and be severe and rigorous in demanding his utmost right over us we could not contend with him nor answer him one of a thousand as Job sayes Job 9.3 and no Man can upon these terms be just with God as he there sayes for so in his sight shall no man living be justified Psal 143.2 but by the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel according to which God will now deal with Mankind many I doubt not have been so justified that through their whole lives they never were in a state of Damnation for nothing puts us into that under Christianity but a great and known and wilful Sin or rather a course and habit of such Sins and though no Man liveth without Sin that is without some Frailties and Imperfections and lesser Sins which come not up to the perfection of the Divine Law for which he ought to beg pardon and say God forgive us our trespasses yet God forbid that those should put us into an ill state for then no Man in the World would be ever out of it But oh thrice happy are those Souls who have not defiled themselves with any great and damnable Sins who have alwayes kept to their first Love and preserved their first Vertue unstained and unspotted and have been so trained up in the wayes of Religion and Goodness that they never wandered or went astray from them nor never stept into the paths of wilful Sin so that their steps should at any time take hold of Death who never past out of that line which divides the two states of Grace and Damnation nor ever approached so near to the brink of Hell as to be in danger of falling into it These have reason to give thanks to God all their lives who has thus kept them out of the snare of the Devil and secured them from the jawes of Death and Destruction and whilst they persevere and go on in this good state and condition and pass from strength to strength and from one degree of grace to another and grow up in all manner of
Grace and Goodness tho' they have not already attained neither are already perfect as the Apostle speaks of himself Phil. 3.12 yet they are alwayes safe and alwayes ready for the coming of the Son of Man and their whole Life is a most sure a most comfortable preparation for Death But these are very few I doubt not only to the general number of Mankind but even to good Men for most of the good Men we read of in Scripture were some time or other guilty of great and wilful Faults as Noah and Abraham and David and St. Peter and St. Paul and Mary Magdalene and whilst they were so and before they had recovered themselves by Repentance I cannot but think them in a bad state for Mens states are not fixt and certain in this Life but are alterable and changed according to their outward actions and the inward temper of their Minds and when ever a wilful and a known Sin breaks the course of Vertue and destroys the habit of Goodness in their Souls it breaks their good state and destroys their comfortable condition As when a Disease strikes the Vitals of our Body and overcomes the Strength and Health of our Constitution unless we get it off it will certainly bring Death along with it God indeed has prescribed us a certain Remedy and an infallible Cure for all Mortal Sins and the greatest Spiritual Maladies and Diseases that would otherwise destroy us and bring Death upon us and that is Repentance which for the sake of Christ and his Merits and by the Mercy and Promise of God shall recover us out of that miserable and mortal state into which every wilful Sin had cast us This shall set us right again in the Court of Heaven where we were cast and condemned before and this shall bring us to a state of Life and Grace who were before struck with the sentence of Death And blessed be God who has thus graciously provided for poor and otherwise lost Sinners by Jesus Christ But Repentance alas though it be a sure Remedy yet is not so easie a one as we imagine 't is a very bitter dose that must not only go down very unpleasantly but must work strongly and powerfully upon our Minds it must not only make us sick and sorrowful contrite and troubled at the very Heart for every Transgression but it must purge out of our Souls every Sin and carry off every vile Lust and wicked Inclination It must not only work upon the peccant humours and so put the Soul into great trouble and disorder but it must perfectly heal and cure it and to do that it must take away the root of the disease it must search to the bottom of the Heart it must touch us to the quick in the tenderest part of us in the most darling Sin and most beloved Lust and it must cut and launce so deep that no secret corruption remain within and no fomes Morbi be left behind In a word it must perfectly cure the Soul and whatever disease it laboured under it must quite remove it so that it never return again upon it for 't is but a palliating a counterfeit or an imperfect cure till this be done And till the Mind be perfectly restored and amended and made better it has not truly repented and therefore the Scripture requires in Repentance not only a broken Heart which is the most significant phrase in the World for the deepest trouble of Mind for our past Sins but it requires a new Heart and a new Soul and a new Creature and a new Man to make up true Repentance and not only that we be renewed in the Spirit of our Minds but that we bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance and that we turn from every evil way and leave and forsake every Sin that we have ever been guilty of as I have more largely shown before We must do all this before we can be said truly to Repent and before we can have any good grounds to expect Pardon of any wilful Sin we ever committed in our whole lives we must thus Repent of it And though we are as sure of forgiveness if we do so as if we had never committed it which is the greatest favour in the World yet how will a poor penitent be alwayes afraid that he has not been sufficiently sorrowful and fully repented of his Sins how will his former Guilt affright him when it stares him in the face and how will the sad load of all his Sins lye heavy upon his Conscience when he is brought to a due sense of them and how must he be contented to lose a great deal of that comfort in his Mind here though he may be safe hereafter and though his Repentance may put him into a good condition yet it will make his Heart sorrowful and the remembrance of his Sins will make it often bleed afresh within him And when he looks back upon his past danger he must tremble at it tho' he has reason to hope he has escaped it and it must keep him alwayes humble and not over-confident of himself and though he has his Pardon in his hand yet he must still look upon it with tears in his eyes Nothing can truly satisfie a Man that he has repented of his Sins but that he has left them out of Religious Grounds and Principles and has had so much tryal of himself as to know he would not commit them though he were in the same circumstances and temptations that he was in before And thus when a bad Man is become a good one when he that was careless and irreligious is become pious and devout when he that was vitious and debauch'd is become sober and vertuous when he that was unjust becomes just and righteous and besides restitution for all past injustice would not commit one act of it to gain all the World when he that stole steals no more and he that was given to drunkenness or uncleanness or any other Sin wholly leaves and forsakes it and is brought by Religion to be quite another Man than he was before then and not till then is his Repentance such as may make him hope for Pardon when he lives and prepare him to dye with comfort For to proceed a little further in this great concern to make a Soul fit and ready for its immediate entering upon another state it must have these two qualifications at that time 1. It must be thoroughly purged from every Vitious Habit or else it is neither meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the Saints in light nor capable of the Pure and Spiritual and Heavenly Happiness As the Tree falls so it lyes sayes the Wise Man Ecclesiastes 11.3 And the same habit and temper as to the main which the Soul carries out of this World will abide with it in the other If any one habitual Wickedness remain upon it or the love of any one Sin be so rooted in it that if it lived
cometh Who that is unprepared knows what time he shall have to prepare himself Who can tell whether the next moment shall be his own and how little time he may have for so great a work And who would loyter any part of his time who knows how much that work will take up for 't is not a few spare hours or dying minutes will put the Soul into a readiness will change its temper and purge out its Sins and dispose and fit it for another World And who can set back Death but a few hours when it gives a short warning and is ready to strike us or perhaps without any warning seizes and hurries us to the other World It is every day making up to us and approaches nearer us every hour and with quick and undiscerned steps it dogs and follows us and may overtake us before we are aware of it A sudden Feaver may set the strongest Body on fire and presently flare out the Lamp of Life A Convulsion may seize in a moment the main fort of Life and surprize us in our greatest strength An Apoplexy or a Deliquium may stop the nimble wheels of Life that moved vigorously and strongly just before and make all the Vital Faculties stand still immediately Besides a thousand accidents from without make us in the midst of Life to be in Death so that we can never be secure but we may be a dying and every time we expire it may be so far as we know our last breath Who would not be then ready who may thus be called on a sudden who may have the Son of Man come in an hour when he thinketh not Come he certainly will but we cannot tell whether in the third or fourth watch of the night let us then watch the whole night that is be ready alwayes If we knew the time of his coming we might be careless and sleep and drowze perhaps till he was near us but since we are alwayes to expect him at an uncertain hour let us put our selves into a posture and readiness to receive him at his own time We can never be ready too soon though he come late but if we are too late before we are ready we lose an opportunity we can never regain and we slip that time which we shall bewail to all Eternity Let us think 2. Upon the certainty of his coming If there were any hopes that he would never come if there were any probability that we should never dye if any Man could be so foolish as to perswade himself to doubt of that he might have some reason to neglect the other but no Man can be Sceptical as to that point nor be so vain as to dispute himself out of the belief of it but he knows and is convinced of that fatal Truth that he must once dye and be laid in the same place of darkness where he has seen so many others laid before him why should he not then prepare and provide for that which will dertainly happen it can never be in vain or to no purpose to do this it can be no lost labour no unnecessary work but all must confess it ought to be done one time or other Why do we not then do that which we own to be necessary Why that it is indeed sayes the foolish Sinner but it may be done hereafter and at a more convenient season Would you not think a Man mad that should talk thus when he was in danger of drowning and would not take hold of the rope was thrown out to him till his last and third rising but let go what he had in his hand in hope to catch it again afterwards or he that was like to fall down a precipice and would not save himself when he might but trust to a twig that was near the bottom He deserves to perish that will not be willing to be saved till he is just perishing And he that allowes himself to live in a sinful state at present with hopes to get out of it hereafter is but like him that stabs himself with a design of being cured or swallows down a deadly Poyson upon presumption of taking an Antidote after he has done it the one is certainly strong enough to kill him and the other may not be strong enough to save him or he may be dead before he can take it Mens resolutions to Repent hereafter are alwayes insincere for if they were not they would Repent at present And besides what a sad state are they in till they do this they are like Prisoners lying under a sentence of Death and Condemnation who hope to procure a Pardon but will not endeavour to do it till they are called to Execution and it be too late Their unrepented Sins do put them into as damnable a state as if Heaven had past sentence upon them and though they know this yet they are willing to continue so till their state is desperate and they are never like to be otherwise For he has no reason to think he shall be ever ready who is not willing to make himself ready at present Let us not therefore delay one minute this great work of Repentance but let us set about it immediately and resolve to go through with it and to live in such a constant habit and practice of Repentance and a good Life as shall make us duly ready and prepared to dye For 3. Let 's consider how terrible Death must be to a wicked impenitent Sinner and what concern he will be in at the approach of it when he must leave all the pleasures of his Sins and the remembrance of them fills him only with terrour and astonishment when all their false charms and meretricious looks whereby they before pleased and enchanted him go off and they now look gastly and frightful and stare him in the face with a scaring appearance and with the sad apprehensions of what they are like to end in when a dreadful Eternity presents it self before him and is like to swallow him up in an horrid abyss of Misery when he comes so nigh to the other World that he can look as it were over to it and see the sad reception he is like to have there when he sees Hell open before him the bottomless Pit gaping to receive him and some of the Flames of it flashing as it were out upon him when Death like an Executioner comes to seize and apprehend him and hurry him before the dreadful Tribunal where all his past Actions must be examined all his secret Sins laid open and a dreadful Sentence shall be immediately pronounced upon him The thoughts of this is enough to make a good Man afraid and the best of us must tremble when we come before this Judgment-seat and are to have our everlasting Fates decreed and determined but the Wicked must be filled with terrour and amazement who can have no hopes no refuge to fly to who has no plea for any Mercy or Pardon
he goes to a Glorious and Blessed Immortality and this will take away if not all Fear of Death yet such a troublesome and tormenting one as fills us with perplexity and confusion whenever we think of it and makes us all our life time subject to bondage as Scripture speaks And this will help to resolve that Question I proposed in the second place namely 2. Whether a true Penitent or good Christian ought to have no Fear of Death I Answer He ought to have no such Fear as makes him all his life time subject to bondage such a base slavish immoderate Fear as makes him not enjoy himself but sinks down his Spirit and depresses his Mind to that degree that he is alwayes uneasie and perplexed and disturbed at the thoughts of it Such as has been storied of some that they would not have the word Death named in their hearing for the very naming and thinking of it made such an impression upon them and struck them with such a panick Fear that like the Hand-writing upon the Wall to Belshazzar Dan. 5.6 in the midst of their jollity it would make their countenance change and their thoughts trouble them so that the joynts of their loins were loosed and their knees smote one against another But above all such a Fear of Death as makes a Man think it a greater Evil than Sin and so to avoid that will deny his Saviour and renounce his Religion or do any thing whatever is necessary to escape a present Fear of Death This makes him a slave to every one that has power to kill him and to save his Life he will deliver up his Conscience his Soul his Saviour his Religion and all those things which ought to be a thousand times more dear to us and which we should be much more unwilling to part with than our lives These are unreasonable and unlawful Fears of Death but there is still a Natural Fear of Death which may belong to a penitent good Christian and which it is not necessary he should wholly overcome as it is a Natural Evil as it is a Punishment of Sin as it is a going to our last great and terrible Tryal before the Bar of Heaven a Tryal upon which our Souls and their Eternal Fate of Happiness or Damnation does depend This may cause some Fear in a true Penitent or a very good Christian and I do not know that God has any where forbid it or that he has promised such a full assurance to every true Penitent and good Man as wholly to take away all kind of Fear of Death or that this is any want of saving Faith in him In some extraordinary cases God may give it as in cases of Suffering and Persecution when an extraordinary assistance of Gods Spirit and an extraordinary assurance of their Salvation took away all Fears of Death and made them go to the Flames and to the Gibbet rejoycing and triumphing but that this is ordinary and constant I see no Reason nor no Scripture to believe The Fear of Death is a Natural and Invincible Infirmity to many a true Penitent and good and humble and timorous Christian who though his Conscience accuse him not of any great and ill things yet may magnifie every little fault and imperfection and not forgive it himself tho' God does nor be at peace in his own Mind though he be with God 'T is a great perfection to conquer the Fears of Death if it be done upon good grounds for some have no Fear of Death out of a sensless stupidness because they have no sense of what follows after Death And we find the greatest part of Men who have most reason to be afraid of it to be the least so out of meer Natural courage and hardiness and for want of thinking or believing or considering the things of Religion and another World others from false Principles and Mistakes by thinking a Pardon or Absolution sets them right in the Court of Heaven and that they may boldly appear there with some such security or those that have low thoughts of Religion and think a little Sorrow for their Sins and a few Sighs and some Prayers when they come to dye will carry them to Heaven as well as if they had lived never so Holily and Righteously and Godly Now if Mens Confidence and Fearlesness arises from such Mistakes as these 't is like the hope of the Hypocrite that shall perish Job 8.13 and such presumptuous persons only rush into Hell with their eyes shut and see not their danger before they are in it On the contrary a modest and humble penitent Christian may be afraid where no Fear is may judge too hardly of himself and may be though quite out of danger yet not out of all Fear for after all God will not judge us by our own Fears or Hopes or Opinion of our selves which may be all groundless and mistaken but he will judge Righteous Judgment and correct the Errors by which we may pass Judgment of our selves and the Terms of the Gospel and not our own Thoughts shall be the Rule by which we shall be judged at the last day But to take off the Fear of Death as much as we can and to free our selves from a slavish and immoderate degree of it the best Directions that can be are these two 1. What hath been already given duly to prepare and fit our selves for it by a timely and thorough Repentance 2. To joyn the liveliest Act of Faith with this our Habitual Repentance and exert that at the time when Death is near us 1. To perfect our Repentance and so to live in the habit of that and of all goodness that we may be the best prepared to dye that we can be Dye we know we must Death if it be not now near us and yet we do not know but it may be dogging us at the heels yet will certainly in a little time come up to us and fright and startle us when it does if we do not take great care to be ready and prepared for it Since we must therefore necessarily encounter this great Monster this terrible Enemy which there is no escaping but we must certainly grapple with him let us all our lives prepare for the battle let us arm our selves with the whole armour of God and Religion with a careful and pious and good life with a timely and thorough Repentance of all our evil ways with a sincere and upright and good Conscience and with avoiding every thing that we know is sinful and unlawful and which will make Death terrible to us whenever it comes Let us not be such desperate Bravoes in Sin as to venture upon that with a false Courage which will make us the worst of Cowards when we come to dye but let us be so wisely afraid of Death now as to live with that care and exactness that we may not be afraid of it when we come to it It were well
if some Men were more afraid of Death than they are and as I am sure they have all reason to be that so they might be brought off from their evil wayes and not run headlong upon those dangers which are very near them though they are not sensible of them The sword hangs over their head though they do not see it and nothing but the thin thread of Life keeps it from falling upon them they walk blindfold upon the brinks of Hell and Damnation and it would be well of Fear would open their Eyes and make them recover themselves before Death makes it too late Nothing can truly and throughly arm us against the Fears of Death but Repentance and a good Life To those who have lived in the practice of them Death is a very harmless thing 't is but lying down to sleep closing the eyes and going to rest the Bodies being sensless a while till it awakes at the great day of Judgment and passing a longer night in the Grave till it arises more fresh and lively in the morning of the Resurrection and as for the Soul 't is a short and quick passage from Earth to Heaven and therefore such have no reason to be afraid of it when it approaches them never so near But then 2. Let the true Penitent quicken his Faith at that time and raise that to the highest and strongest pitch that so he may then look beyond the grave and see and believe and desire those happy and glorious things which God has prepared for him in another World If we believed those as we ought we should never be so afraid to dye if we were so affected with those pleasures that are above and that are at Gods Right-hand for evermore we should not be so loth to part with the Pleasures shall I say rather with the Troubles and the Miseries of this Life Did we think as we ought of that perfect peace and joy and satisfaction which is not to be had here but to be met with only in Heaven we should not be so fond to abide in this Valley of Tears and not go up to those Mansions above where is full Joy and Contentment Let us fix our thoughts and set our hearts upon those happy Regions of Bliss and Glory and we shall not fear to pass through the shadow of Death to come to them tho' the way to that Heavenly Canaan is through a Wilderness through the dark and unknown Region of Death through which a thousand wandering Souls are alwayes passing yet we shall be conducted safely through it by Angels who will bring us to the Palace of the great King where we shall be received by our blessed Master and Saviour and by all the Saints and holy Souls that are gone before us who as they rejoyce at a Sinners Repentance will now welcome him to his Fathers house and we shall then as much wonder at our selves for fearing to dye as we are now willing to live If the account which Scripture gives us of those invisible Regions be true and we do fully believe that Joy that Glory that Blessedness that unspeakable Happiness which is there revealed to us this our Faith joyn'd with our Repentance should overcome the Fears of Death and make us not only not afraid but desire to be dissolved and to be willing to lay down this load and luggage of Flesh because we know that if our earthly house oâ— this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And there shall be no more Sin nor Sorrow nor Repentance but the blessed Penitent now he is safely arrived at his happy Port shall look back upon the past hazards and dangers he was in and comfortably remember how his Sins like so many Rocks had like to have split and shipwreck'd and swallowed him up in the gulph of Perdition and how by the wonderful Grace of God he hath happily escaped them and is come safe to Heaven and therefore will now offer Eternal Thanksgivings and pay his Vows of Praise to his great Deliverer and rejoyce evermore in his Glorious and Heavenly Salvation CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance I Am next to consider Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have this benefit of Repentance This has been denyed by a great many and particularly by the Novatians who would not allow Pardon and Absolution to wilful and great Sins committed after Baptism and this is charged upon Smalcius and other Socinians that they deny the same to heinous and habitual Sins of Relapse into which any shall fall after they have once Repented and been freed from them And there are some places of Scripture that seem very much to favour these hard Opinions as Heb. 6.4 5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once inlightened 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 again unto Repentance And Heb. 10.26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins And 2 Pet. 2.20 21 22. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb The dog is returned to his own vomit and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire And in other places the Scripture speaks of a Sin unto Death 1 John 5.16 as of a more malignant and deadly Nature and different from all other Sins which are Mortal and Sins also unto Death without Repentance And our Saviour sayes expresly of the Sin against the Holy Ghost that it is unpardonable and shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor the world to come Luke 12.20 Matth. 12.32 i. e. as St. Mark expresses it It hath never forgiveness but is in danger of eternal damnation Mark 3.29 And what that is is not fully agreed on by Divines and so there may be fear if not danger of a Christians falling into it and so into an unpardonable state by the Holy Ghosts being so many wayes concerned in his Salvation and he having so many wayes to Sin against him This gives therefore great trouble to a great many Minds and if one particular Sin or any sorts of Sin be unpardonable by the Gospel they will be very fearful and can hardly be satisfied but that they have committed that Sin and so are cut off from all hopes by it and they will
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
would never receive them again into their Communion thereby to fright all persons from all false and cowardly compliances in those times of danger and persecution but afterwards the Church was forced to abate of this rigour which had made such Disturbances and occasioned those great Schisms of the Novatians and Donatists There were other Sins also for which the guilty Penitents were excluded from all Communion to the last in those purer and severer Ages as Murder Adultery and those Unnatural Lusts which they call'd Monstra these were never admitted to Pardon and Absolution of the Church as appears by the Canons of those antient Councils of Eliberis Arle and Ancyra and by the Writings of Tertullian and others and the opposition made in Africa to the Decree of Pope Zephyrine and by the milder Canons of the Council of Nice afterwards but all this was only prudential and an external Discipline in foro humano which the Church altered according to its Discretion but they did not deny all Pardon with God for those Sins upon Repentance nor utterly cut them off from all hopes in another World but allowed God could pardon them tho' not the Church that they might be forgiven though not in this World yet in the World to come according to that Jewish Notion that though there were no Sacrifices nor ordinary means of Expiation for some Sins yet that God would forgive them hereafter Secondly That Sins are Pardoned after Baptism as well as before is plain from the Incestuous Corinthian who though he had committed such a Sin as was not usual among the Gentiles and was to be put out of the Church and to be delivered unto Satan for it yet this was not to cut him off from Pardon and Salvation but as a better means to bring him to both it was only for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord 1 Cor. 5.5 And this sure was the design of those severe and long Penances in the Primitive Church whereby tho' they excluded Sinners from the benefits of Communion and means of Grace yet it was not to bereave them of all hopes of Pardon and consign them irreversibly to Damnation but to beget a greater terrour and dread of Sin and to make their Repentance for it more compleat and perfect and so by those present Judgments and Severities here to prevent their Eternal Condemnation hereafter for this ought to be the Rule and Measure of all Church Power and Discipline it ought to be for Edification not for Destruction and they could not miss of this The Spirit of God writes to the Church of Ephesus which were a company of Baptized Christians to Remember from whence they were fallen and Repent and do their first works Rev. 2.5 And St. Paul threatens the Christians at Corinth to bewail and correct those which had sinned and not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness they had committed 2 Cor. 12.21 but does not denounce that they were unpardonable Sad would it be if all wilful Sins were so after Baptism this would make Christianity a more terrible and severe dispensation than the Law and put us in a worse condition than we were without it and no Man would then be Baptized till he was a Clinic and near dying and going out of the World but Baptism puts us into a state of Pardon and the Grace and the Vertue of it continues all our lives and if we sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous 1 John 2.1 and his Mediation will upon our Repentance procure Pardon at Gods hands at all times for us Thirdly I shall next consider Sins of Relapse when a Person after Sorrow and Repentance for a Sin yet falls into it again and repeats it after he has resolved against it and been convicted of the heinousness of it now this is a sad case and shows the power of his Lusts and the weakness of Religion upon a Mans Mind and no Man who is in this state can be said to Repent He is no more got rid of his Sins than a Man is of a Feaver because it intermits sometimes and he is well by intervals but his Fits return again upon him which shows that the Disease is still in his Blood as the other's Relapses do that sin still reigns in him because he obeys it in the Lusts thereof A Man in the beginning of his Repentance from some habitual Sins may not get rid immediately of all his Evil Customs and Sinful Inclinations but they may sometimes draw him back again and sometimes master and overcome him and he may rally again and recover himself and at last vanquish them Now whilst this Conflict lasts and 't is uncertain which side will get the better and have the final victory no judgment can be made of a Mans state because the issue is doubtful and uncertain He is fighting and striving for his Life for his Soul and for Heaven and he may by his own care and endeavours and by the assistance of Heaven conquer and overcome his Sins and to him that overcometh God will give of the tree of life Rev. 2.7 but if he is overcome by them he is a slave of Sin and a captive of the Devil and a child of Hell and heir of Damnation but what shall a Man do who has often thus relapsed into Sin after his most serious Vows and Resolutions against it are his Sins against those unpardonable and is there no hopes for him I Answer by no means if he can but recover himself from them and after all attempts at last get rid of them and bring forth the contrary fruits of Repentance and Obedience I confess such an one ought to suspect himself and to suspect his Repentance till by many tryals he has made it good and confirmed it and he ought to be doubly watchful over himself and to take heed least Sin enter again at any of those weak places at which it used to have admittance and to fortifie himself against all those temptations and opportunities that used to betray him to it and therefore to keep his Mind to a close sense of Religion and to a careful use of all the Means and Instruments of it and to beg earnestly of Heaven Grace proportionable to his needs and then if it be not his own fault it will certainly be sufficient for him But such Relapses though they are not quite hopeless nor put a Man into a condition that is desperate yet they are very dangerous they grieve Gods Holy Spirit they give a new Wound to our Consciences they make the old Wound that was healed bleed afresh and render it more difficult to be cured again and more ready to mortifie and become incurable they bring the Mind to a weakness and unsteadiness and irresolution and to have no power or command over it self but let its good Purposes and Principles be bore down by a weak Lust or
a silly Temptation and one such fatal Relapse sets it back a great way and makes it with great difficulty roll up the same stone which hath driven it so much downwards and with greater labour set upon the same work and design which such a miscarriage makes more hard to be effected They who make Repentance lye in some transient Acts which upon new Sins are to be repeated toties quoties like a Medicine to be taken as often as the same illness returns forget that Repentance is a state of Health after Sickness a state of Vertue and Obedience after Vice and Disobedience and that when such a state is once broken 't is not easie to be made whole again but like a broken Limb it cannot be set without great pain and long time to grow together again and that if it be often broken it will contract an habitual weakness and lameness How long God will suffer a Sinner thus to continue in a state of Falling and Rising Repenting and Relapsing before he cuts him off from any hopes of Pardon or benefit of Repentance we do not know nor how long a hardened impenitent wretch may go on in a course of sinning before the means of Grace and the day of Salvation may be over with him so that if he knock God will not open and there shall be no place found for his Repentance This is a secret likewise which is only in the breast of the Almighty who threatens that his Spirit shall not alwayes strive with man Gen. 6.3 And behold now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 And to day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts Heb. 3.15 And if thou in this thy day hadst known the things belonging to thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Luke 19. 42. And seek the Lord while he may be found call ye upon him while he is near Isa 55.6 So that God is not alwayes to be found nor alwayes near and it may be too late for the things of our peace and the accepted time and the day of Salvation may not continue alwayes but a Man may sin so long till God will withdraw his Grace and may come to an unpardonable pitch and an impenitent state and may despise the riches of Gods goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance But after his hardness and impenitent heart may treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God Rom. 2.4 5. This should keep us from neglecting the present opportunities and not put off our Repentance from day to day But to day while it is called to day hearken to his voice lest we be hardened with the deceitfulness of sin But if any be under those Fears that he has brought himself to that sad state this is the only true satisfaction can be given him Whilst he is willing to Repent and has a just sense of his Sins and of his ill state he is not hardened and if Gods Grace doth so far work upon his Mind as to make him see and apprehend the necessity of Repentance and the forsaking all his evil wayes then it is not quite withdrawn from him and if he be willing to try all means and use his best endeavours to get rid of his Sins there is great hopes that he may effect this for God will never be wanting to assist our sincere Wills and hearty Endeavours and if his Spirit worketh in us to will and to desire to leave our Sins from a right apprehension of the danger and mischief of them and produce such convictions and illuminations in our Mind it is certain it hath not abandoned or deserted us and it will work in us to do also and to effect and perform those good thoughts and purposes if we persist in them and endeavour with our utmost power to make them good and effectual No Man is cut off from Pardon who Repents and becomes a good Man tho' he has been never so bad an one and no Man will have Gods Grace denyed him who is at any time sincerely willing and desirous to make use of it but 't is a hard and insensible state that has sinn'd away its Life and its day of Grace and has only deep horrours and fruitless sorrows when it is too late to amend and become a good Man that is hopeless and desperate SECT II. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost its Nature and whether Pardonable or no. WHat is the particular Nature of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and wherein that which is so dreadful does truly consist the Scripture methinks is very plain though they who have left that and followed their own or others conjectures and opinions about it are very confused and intricate and very different and divided among themselves They have made a great many Sins against the Holy Ghost when God has no where in Scripture made but one and that being of so dreadful and heinous a Nature we must be careful to apply it no further than we have warrant from the Word of God and from our Saviour who best knew it and it appears clearly from his Discourse about it to be this A blasphemous charging of the Miracles he did by the Power of the Holy Ghost to the Power of the Devil This the Pharisees did Matth. 12.24 when Christ had wrought a mighty Cure and Miracle upon a Demoniack to the admiration of all the People that had brought him unto him ver 21. Then was brought unto him one possessed of a Devil blind and dumb and he healed him insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw And all the people were amazed and said Is not this the Son of David But when the Pharisees heard it they said This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils Our Saviour when he had confuted that unreasonable and malicious Calumny against him by showing how unlikely it was that the Devil should thus destroy his own Kingdom and Interest by being divided against himself and lending him his Power to cast out Devils and that it might as well be pretended that all Miracles that were done by their Prophets of old or by others amongst them afterwards were performed by a Diabolical Power as well as his and so they would destroy the force and credit of their own Miracles as well as those he did he immediately proceeds to discourse of this Sin Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto them And he repeats it again in the next Verse And whosoever speaketh a word against the son of man it shall be forgiven him that is yet may with less guilt and danger abuse me for any thing else that does not so immediately reflect upon and reproach the Spirit
Glutton and Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners and to raise slanderous and false stories against any Mans Credit is one of the greatest though the commonest Sins but to proceed so far as to slander and reproach God this was accounted by one of the Heathens as bad or worse than to deny him but to represent the Holy and Blessed Spirit of God as an Apostate Angel as a Hellish Fiend and to reproach and scoff and calumniate whatever he does for the good and salvation of Mankind as the work and intrigue of the Devil This is such an horrid Sin that our Saviour says it should not be forgiven but bring certain Judgment upon them I come now to inquire how and upon what account it is Unpardonable which is the greatest difficulty about it Now though no Sin in its own Nature be unpardonable because none so great but that the infinite Mercy and Goodness of God does still exceed it and none is exempted from that General and Gracious Promise of Pardon which he hath made to Mankind and none has so much Guilt in it but that the Blood of Christ and Merit of his Sacrifice is able to atone and expiate for it and none does so far corrupt and deprave the Mind but that the Grace of God can restore and amend it yet a Sin may however be unpardonable by reason of some circumstances attending it and chiefly upon these three accounts 1. As not being Repented of for so every wilful Sin is unpardonable For though the Gospel proposes Mercy and Pardon to every Sin and Sinner without exception yet 't is upon this never failing condition of Repentance and Amendment without which we shall as certainly perish as if there had been no place for Mercy at all but we had stood under an irreversible decree of Condemnation for the first Sin we had committed The Covenant of Grace is made upon that Condition on our part which if we fail of we shall as certainly lose the benefit of it as if there had been no such Covenant made 2. That Sin is also unpardonable by the standing terms of the Divine Mercy which is not curable by all the ordinary means of the Divine Grace but resists and baffles all those remedies which can be used to that purpose As a Disease is uncurable when it is too strong for all the remedies that can be used against it so is a Sin unpardonable when it is too hard for all the means whatsoever that are proper to amend it As when a Man will be an Infidel and disobedient to God when he sees plain Miracles before his face and will not be convinced by all these which are the best and only means to that purpose when he will still be obstinate and harden himself against the highest evidence that is possible as Pharaoh did when he could not but confess that the Miracles were done by the Finger of God and yet would not hearken unto him or as the Pharisees and some of the Jews who would not be perswaded to Christianity by all the visible Wonders and extraordinary Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles What was there more to be done to satisfie those Men and how could any thing that God and the Divine Power was able to do convince them of their Infidelity if this would not And so now when all the considerations and all the credible evidences of Religion will not work upon a Man nor perswade him to a good Life when he resists all the means of Grace that God has appointed he then resists the last and utmost remedy that should do him good and so is necessarily in a hopeless uncurable state and condition 3. That Sin is unpardonable which provokes God to withdraw his Spirit and all the influences of the Divine Grace and to give them up to a spirit of slumber and a reprobate sense and hardness of Heart as he is sometimes said to do if not for one Sin yet for a great many obstinately and irreclaimably continued in And now let us examine the Sin against the Holy Ghost by these 3 ways 1. Can it be said to be unpardonable because unrepented of It seemeth not upon this account because it is probable that many of those who were guilty of it did afterwards Repent and turn Christians Among the many numerous Proselytes to Christianity in the time of our Saviour and especially of the Apostles it cannot be proved or thought that there were not some of those made Converts that had fall'n into it and Christ when he prayed for his Enemies and for his Crucifiers most earnestly entreated his Father to forgive them all without any exception Luke 23.24 by which he had plainly some hopes of their Repentance and Amendment and if he had not it would have been in vain to have used so many means as he did afterwards to that purpose besides that he intimates not the least word to them of their Impenitence nor was that to be said of them till the last this would not sufficiently distinguish this Sin from any other great and wilful one for any such unrepented of and that by a particular Repentance is unpardonable as well as this against the Holy Ghost unless we will venture to say what we have no sufficient warrant for and therefore is very bold and especially when 't is a kind of limiting the Grace and Mercy of God that Men could never Repent of this as they can of all others but that God who hath opened a door of Mercy and Repentance in all other cases hath absolutely shut it in this so that they shall never be able nor willing to enter in 2. Is it unpardonable upon the second account as it was not curable by any means that God had appointed and thought fit to use to that purpose This it seems not to be neither because God had not yet made use of all the means that he intended for the Conversion of the Jews and the Scribes and Pharisees Our Saviour indeed had done a great many Miracles to testifie his Divine Power but still there were a great many more which remained behind and which he had not yet performed If we look into the Gospel of St. Matthew and St. Mark and observe the time when our Saviour had his discourse of this Sin we shall find he wrought many very considerable Miracles after that and what was the design of all them but to perswade those to believe in him and to embrace Christianity who were not perswaded so to do by his former ones And there remained another Motive behind which was an evidence even beyond all and which was such an Argument to convince the Jewish Infidelity as did outdo almost all the other Miracles of our Saviour and that was his Resurrection from the Dead This was the great and irresistible proof for the Truth of Christ and his Religion and of this especially the Apostles were to be witnesses to all the World as being the
incurable hardness to all nor so far as we know to the Scribes and Pharisees themselves but there were means still used to recover them which would have been all in vain and to no purpose if they had been under an irrecoverable and judicial hardness and it had not been only blindness or hardness in part which had happened to Israel Rom. 11.25 or to the Jews And we shall venture too far out of our depth if we offer to say that God made use of many means and remedies to convince and convert the Jews the Scribes and the Pharisees when he had appointed and decreed that none of those should have any effect or good operation upon them this will hardly be consistent with the Goodness and Mercy or with the Truth and Sincerity of the Blessed God nor does he ever for any one Sin but for a long obstinate course of many provoking Sins continued in irreclaimably against the Methods of Divine Grace give up any Person to hardness of Heart There remains I confess another way by which a Sin may become unpardonable and that is by being exempted by God from the general Promise and Covenant of Pardon which he hath made with Mankind He who has all Sovereign Power and an entire Right of Punishment and upon whose Free Grace and Arbitrary Favour all Pardon and Forgiveness depends may except what Sin he pleases out of his General Act of Grace and Proclamation of Pardon and Indempnity but this surely should be done particularly and by name and in the very Act and Proclamation it self there in the very Charter and Covenant of Grace which God has signed with Mankind this ought to be expresly exempted and whether this Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost be so or no is the question or whether this expression of our Saviours concerning it that it shall not be forgiven may be mollified and understood not in the utmost rigour of the Word but as a great many of the best Interpreters of Scripture have judged particularly St Chrysostome of old and Dr. Hammond of late that this Sin shall hardly and not without great difficulty be forgiven and not so soon or so easily as other Sins that it supposes and proceeds from such a corruption of the Mind that is more dangerous and more hard to be cured than any other distempers it is subject to but yet that 't is not quite impossible as the words literally taken seem to imply I shall offer you the Reasons that plead for this Opinion and then determine what is most safe and satisfying in this matter 1. It is very usual in Scripture to represent a thing that is very hard and difficult as if it were utterly impossible and never could be This our Saviour himself does in the case of the Rich Mans entering into the Kingdom of Heaven to express the hardness of it he does it by a thing that is utterly impossible Matth. 19.24 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God And so does the Prophet also make use of a Natural impossibility to represent the great difficulty of a Mans turning from a long course and custom of sinning Jer. 13.23 Can the Aethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil Not but it is possible notwithstanding those Proverbial expressions that a Man who has been accustomed to do evil a very great while may yet be brought off from his Sins and become a good Man or else all the Exhortations to Repentance and Promises of the Gospel are in vain and so may a good Man become a very bad one too and fall from his own stedfastness and become guilty of abominable Sins As David did that was a Man after Gods own Heart notwithstanding that St. John in the same way and manner of expression with these declares concerning him 1 Ep. 3.9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is horn of God That Phrase he cannot denotes not an utter impossibility for the Prophet as well as Experience too plainly show the contrary that a righteous man may turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity and dye in it Ezek. 18.26 Things are sometimes so exprest in Scripture as they often are also amongst Men as if there were no hopes nor no probable means of effecting a thing when yet there are very certain ones as in that expression 1 Sam. 2.25 not a little parallel to this If one man sin against another the judge shall judge him but if a man sin against the Lord who shall intreat for him Not that there is no Advocate nor no way of interceding with God when a Man thus sins against him but to show the guilt and danger of it above the other That place of the Hebrews chap. 6. ver 4. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened c. If they shall fall away to renew them again to Repentance that is by very good Interpreters thought to denote only great difficulty and not impossibility in the utmost rigour and strictness which it is plain none of the other Phrases however they may sound must be taken in and therefore this expression of our Saviour concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost they think may be mollified and understood with the same largeness and latitude as those and to import only thus much that it shall be more difficultly repented of and so more hardly forgiven than any other Sins 2. Both the first part of this Verse That all manner of sin and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men and many other absolute and unconditional Promises or Threatnings or like Declarations in Scripture must not they say be too rigorously and literally understood for if they are the truth which is now evident in them as they are taken with that fairness and equity and those supposals which must go along with them will be forced out and they will become false for it will not be true that all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men for then none should be damned of made miserable in another World And when St. Paul sayes They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of Heaven Gal. 5.21 it must not be made a certain and general conclusion from thence that none who were ever guilty of any one of those Sins whereof he there gives us a black Catalogue shall ever be saved nor become capable of entering into Heaven but that they shall not be so without Repentance and Amendment though that is not there mentioned nor any provision concerning that is so much as intimated in that place nor is that tho' necessary Condition to the forgiveness of every Sin exprest or put down in our Saviours general Declaration that all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men
is and hinder Men from ever becoming better 2 Let us take care to avoid all manner of wilful Sin and especially all those great ones that come near and any way approach to this Sin against the Holy Ghost A very wilful Sin in a Christian especially is in some fense a Sin against the Holy Ghost 't is a grieving a quenching and a resisting the Spirit in the language of Holy Scripture That Blessed Spirit is concerned as the great promoter of Vertue and Goodness in the World and as the great Principle of it in the Hearts of Men and whenever we do any wicked thing we offer violence to that and by our rude and vicious carriage we affront and grieve and at last banish and drive away that Blessed Guest out of our Souls Whatever is Wicked and Sinful is so contrary to his Pure and Excellent Nature that it is highly offensive to him and if we go on in a course of long and customary Wickedness we sin the more against him and come the nearer to that sad and wretched state that is unpardonable I do not think indeed that any one Sin or particular Act of any Sin whatever puts us into that condition but as every Sickness and Indisposition of Body is a tendency to Death and Mortality so every wilful Sin is a corruption of the Mind and an approach to a state of Spiritual Death And there are some Sins that bring this sooner upon us as the acting against our Consciences and the sense of our own Minds an opposing the Truth that is evident to us a scoffing at Religion and making a mock of Sin an abusing the Scriptures and ridiculing the Holy Word of God an obstinate resistance of all the motions of Gods Holy Spirit upon our Minds These and such like gross and obstinate impieties though I do not think they are any of them the very Sin against the Holy Ghost for that ought not to be extended further than we have a warrant from Scripture yet they are so many approaches as it were to it and have more of the ill symptoms of that upon them and therefore we ought especially to avoid them lest they bring us by degrees into that sad state which is unpardonable for though one Sin I believe do not do this yet a great many may and especially such as those which do so waste the Conscience and corrupt the Mind as to make it uncurable And this is the saddest State and Condition in the World next to the State of Hell and Damnation tho' it be not the immediate Sin against the Holy Ghost Having endeavoured to give the plainest and fullest Satisfaction I can to the most doubtful and scrupulous Minds about this Sin of the Holy Ghost I shall now Discourse of some other things of a Lesser Nature which many Penitents and good Men are apt to be greatly dissatisfied with and have dark and wrong thoughts about As I. Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit which they find in themselves II. Trouble of Mind and a wounded Spirit which many lye under by reason of their Sins or by reason of Melancholly or both together SECT III. Of Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit THE right understanding of our selves is very necessary to the right understanding of Religion Religion is fitted and adapted to Humane Nature in its present state and capacity in this World and is designed not to destroy it but to perfect and improve it and raise it to its true Happiness and Perfection We cannot be like the Angels in Heaven nor like pure and glorious Spirits whilst we live here upon Earth and have Bodies of Flesh and Blood united to our Souls God who made us and knows our Frame did not intend to destroy and undo his own Creation by the Precepts of Religion nor make us cease to be Men by becoming Christians We find indeed in our selves a great many weaknesses and corruptions strong passions and sensual inclinations which if we did not wisely govern would be great occasions of Sin to us and if we let them loose would carry us into a thousand Mischiefs as well as Sins and Wickednesses They who give the reins to those and the full swinge to their Natural Lusts and Passions run into all Vice and Debauchery and commit all uncleanness with greediness And the best of Men cannot be wholly free from that Original Concupiscence and those Sensual Motions and Desires that are not alwayes agreeable to Reason and Religion but they complain of this bondage of corruption and this body of death which they cannot be delivered from Rom. 8.21 and 7.24 Grace and Religion though it gives us another Principle and conveys new powers of a Divine and Spiritual Life into our Souls yet whilst the Animal and Sensual Life remains and whilst we are compounded of Flesh and Blood as well as Spirit and Reason and have a Carnal as well as Spiritual Principle in us there will be a mighty struggle and a great contest between those two and a kind of civil war in our breasts between those different Parties and which of those shall be uppermost and have the chief Power and gain the Victory is the great point and the great concern of all Vertue and Religion since in all of us as the Apostle sayes The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that we cannot do the things that we would Gal. 5.17 And this we know by Experience as well as by Revelation Now this Concupiscence that remaineth in good Men is often matter of great trouble to them and they know not what to judge of it or how far it is a Sin and ought to be Repented of and what way they may best overcome it I shall therefore to clear and satisfie their thoughts about this matter of the struggle or Lusting between the Flesh and Spirit show these three things First That mere Lusting on either side is not what makes either Sin or Vertue or denominates a bad or a good Man Secondly That these are the proper matter of Vice or Vertue in which the tryal and exercise of them lye Thirdly That we ought to lessen the Power of the Fleshly Lusting and increase that of the Spirit and what are the proper means to do this I shall briefly consider First That meer Lusting on either side is not what makes either Sin or Vertue nor what constitutes or denominates a bad or a good Man For this Lusting is in both good and bad though according to several degrees and measures in the one the Lusting of the Flesh prevails and in the other that of the Spirit and 't is from this the prevalency of either of these and not the meer contention of them that we are counted good or bad before God The best of Men may have the same Passions Appetites and
Mercy and judges himself as incapable of it as the damned in Hell when Gods Spirit has left him so that he can neither pray nor do any thing to relieve himself but lyes as a condemned Caitiff a Malefactor sentenced past all hopes of Pardon and only expecting Punishment and the last stroke of Vengeance this is a sad a deplorable condition which I have known many a Sinner in under a Wounded Spirit and had one great instance before me when I was writing this These Wounds are not felt indeed by many a Sinner in the heat of Blood in the career of his Lusts and the hot persuit of his Sins when in his high frolicks and jovial diversions he drowns the noise of his Conscience or lulls it asleep with charming Pleasures or full Cups or some unthinking madness but it will awake one time or other and like a sleeping Lyon when 't is roused up by some Judgment by some Sickness or Affliction it will fall terribly upon him with rage and fury and tear and consume him then all the wounds which sin gave it will bleed afresh and it will feel them afterwards unless they have been cured by a timely repentance if they have festered and gangrened and mortified the Soul for a time yet when it comes to it self it will feel them with unexpressible pain and anguish which nothing can asswage I mean when a Man has sin'd away his Life and Death and his Sins are set together before him and 't is hard to know which is the more terrible When the Sting of Death swelled up with Sin and Guilt strikes as deep into a Man's Conscience and wounds his Spirit as Death it self strikes into his Body with its fatal dart so that he suffers a double death at the same time and the Spiritual far more painful than the Bodily I take a Wounded Spirit here in the highest and most common sense and though when a Mans Spirit is dejected and sunk with any thing 't is very hard to bear it which may be the sense of the Wise Mans words in the forequoted place when the strength of a Mans Mind is lost which should support him under all his infirmities that he is subject to from without yet nothing does so sink it so wound and destroy it as Sin and Guilt especially when it is come to such a degree and to such a sad condition as we commonly mean by a Wounded Spirit i. e. a Mind deeply pierced with the sense of its own Guilt and of Gods Anger upon it This likewise admits of degrees and in some cases 't is a very happy thing for a Sinner and 't is to be sure alwayes a just Punishment I shall therefore in the Third place briefly consider what is the proper Cure and Remedy of such a wounded Spirit or troubled Mind for there is no Spiritual Illness but what is curable if we take it in time by Religion no Wound of Soul but what there is Balm for in Gilead in Christianity there is no Disease too great for our Heavenly Physician but what the Gospel has a proper and certain Remedy for if we duely and timely apply it A Man may tarry too long indeed and not use the Physick till it be too late till Death comes and puts an end to the time of Tryal and the time of Repentance and then a Wounded Spirit i. e. the extremest Sorrow for a Mans Sins the deepest Contrition of Soul for them cannot come up to true Gospel Repentance to which there is a certain promise of Pardon and Forgiveness for that is only upon turning to God and leaving all our Sins and leading a new Life and bringing forth the Fruits of Repentance by Obedience to the Gospel for the future which is a necessary condition by the terms of the Gospel which he cannot perform whom God cuts off before he can do it and therefore such an one must be left to the Infinite Mercy and Righteous Judgment of God to be dealt with by such measures as are not within the Covenant of Grace or the Terms of the Gospel for by those I cannot see any title he has to Pardon But in other Cases a Wounded Spirit may be the greatest Mercy and even the very beginning of Health or of a Cure to a Soul when God does not suffer a Man to go on senslesly in his Sins till he come to a seered Conscience and a reprobate Sense and to hardness of Heart and blindness of Mind but by some methods of his Grace and Providence alarums his Conscience and awakens his stupid Mind and brings his almost sensless and stupified Soul to some Spiritual sense of his condition Then his Soul will be wounded as Davids was when he reflects upon those Sins which he committed without consideration and he will be sore struck and smitten as every Penitent must at the remembrance of his evil wayes All Repentance is such a wounding of the Soul as makes its Heart bleed within it and its Blood and Spirits melt into Tears and Sorrow for what it has done 't is not such an easie thing as most men think it to be 't is such a Pain such a Wound to the Soul that the Pleasure of the greatest Sin is but a poor trifle to it and no man that rightly understood it would venture upon any Sin from the reserved hopes of it Repentance is a bitter Remedy made up of very strong and unpleasant ingredients and we must go through a long course to purge out the old Disease and take away the root of it so that before a wicked mind can be cured by it it must be cut and lanced and wounded and have very severe applications made to it The work of Regeneration or the New Birth cannot be wrought without many pangs or throwes nor does God ever almost bring a bad man to become a good one without some trouble and disorder of Mind There is a trouble of Mind indeed which is excessive and unreasonable for every Sinner ought in some measure to be troubled in Mind and he has not a due sense of his Sins if he is not but there is a trouble of Mind which takes away the hopes of Mercy and throwes Men into despair which is commonly called a Wounded Spirit and 't is so in the highest degree and whether there is any Remedy for that and what it is and what advice is to be given in such a case and what judgment to be made of it I shall briefly consider 1. Then this is often joyned with Melancholly of Body which is very hard to be cured and till it be so it is apt to darken the Mind and bring a cloud over the Spirits and to fill the Soul with very black Idea's and Imaginations and to hinder it from making true judgment of it self or its own actions and this is as pityable and ought as much to be remedied by Physick and Care as other Diseases of Body for I have known
very good Persons subject to it and one of the best means to cure it is to know that this is one cause of that trouble of Mind which will be so much abated when one is perswaded from whence it often comes or is heightened For Melancholly is not curable by Religion or Divinity and they who are subject to it should take the more care of their lives that there be no true and great cause to fall in and joyn with the Melancholly of their Bodies and they should make a judgment of themselves in their best tempers and when their thoughts are clearest and should trust others and especially their Spiritual Guides to judge for them since they are so unfit generally to pass judgment upon themselves 2. This Trouble of Mind which makes Men despair of Mercy is most unreasonable and contrary to the whole tenour and design of the Gospel for there is Pardon held out to the greatest Sinner by the Blood of Christ and to the greatest Sin or the greatest number of Sins if we Repent of them and leave them and become good Men before we dye This is as certain as the Gospel is true and therefore no Man has any just cause to despair for the greatest Sin or Sins who is so heartily troubled for them that he would not for the World commit them again and who resolves never to do so by the Grace of God but to practice the contrary Vertues and who makes good this Resolution by a Vertuous and Pious and Religious Life this Man will as certainly be happy as if he had been alwayes innocent and never had offended God I cannot say he will be in a state as comfortable and free from trouble though if he has thus Repented and become a good man he has good reason to be so but he will be as safe and if he has still some trouble of mind remaining upon the remembrance of his Sins though never so long past and he cannot see the Pardon of them with the same certainty and evidence that he knows he committed them yet this shall not hinder his Pardon nor affect his Salvation if he has truly and fully Repented of them For 3. And Lastly This Trouble of Mind which proceeds from judging too hardly or severely of himself is rather an Infirmity than a Sin and God will not condemn a Man for it though he may condemn himself for God will not condemn a Man unjustly though he should unjustly condemn himself much less because he does so Despair is indeed a sad state but I cannot say it is alwayes a damnable Sin or want of Faith as some think for it may arise not from a disbelief of the Gospel or of the Divine Goodness or the freeness and fullness of Gods Grace in and through Christ but meerly from a false and mistaken and too hard and humble an opinion of a Mans self and this is a fault not of a Mans Will but of his Judgment and a weakness and imperfection in his Understanding for which he shall never be condemned by a Righteous God but he will reverse this false Judgment which he made of himself when he lived or when he dyed and set it right in the Court of Heaven and do Justice to him at the great Tribunal though he did not do it to himself here That God will judge Men according to their Works is plain in Scripture but no where that I know that he will do so according to their Thoughts their vain Hopes and presumptuous or vain Fears and Troubles and Doubts and even Despairs of themselves So that tho' this Trouble of Mind or this Wounded Spirit be a comfortless and unhappy state yet it truly depends upon the cause to make judgment of it or to conclude any thing from it and true and timely Repentance is the best and certainest Remedy for it CHAP. IV. The ill Consequences drawn from the Priviledge of Repentance Obviated and Prevented THE most wicked and greatest of Sinners who have any thoughts of their Souls and of another World though they are not prevailed upon by this to become better yet make this reserve and refuge to themselves that they will Repent hereafter at some time or other and so escape the Wrath to come They know and are very sensible if they have not shaken off all Religion and all thinking and considering of these things that except they repent they shall all perish but they hope and intend to prevent this by the benefit of Repentance and so make use of that not to bring them off from their Sins but to encourage them in them with hopes to avoid all the miserable consequences of them and yet live in them and so by this priviledge of an after Repentance they set aside the present necessity of a good Life and wholly destroy or supersede all Religion I shall therefore endeavour to prevent that most common and most fatal abuse of it for I am confident there are more Souls perish by that than by any other mistake whatsoever and a thousand times more than by down-right Infidelity and Disbelief of all Religion which is a very rare thing and 't is hard to find out any certain instances that have ever been of it in the World 't is so much against the Natural Sense and Reason and Apprehension of Mankind but the other is the commonest thing in the World even for Christians perhaps above any others to make false Reasonings to themselves from this priviledge of Repentance which we have in the highest degree from the Gospel to think they may secure and save their Souls and yet indulge and allow themselves in the present enjoyment of their Sins because they may set all right by Repenting of them hereafter I shall therefore against this errour and abuse of Repentance and to obviate this mischievous Consequence offer these following Considerations 1. Can we think a Wise God would make such a Grant and Concession to his Creatures as should destroy all Religion and make void the necessity of Obedience and a good Life which according to these Mens thoughts is unavoidably done by this Gospel-priviledge of Repentance For since say they a Man is as certainly safe who comes in at any time upon Repentance and shall be as certainly saved by the Terms and Conditions of the Gospel as if he had spent all his Life in the strictest Vertue and Religion What need is there of such an early and constant and perpetual Obedience and spending a whole Life in the servitude and drudgery of Religion when coming in at the eleventh hour and working but a short space at the latter end of the day will have as much Wages and as sure a Reward and be as certainly accepted by God Shall not a Sinner when ever he returns and repents find Mercy Is there any time or bounds prefix'd to his Repentance so that he may not do it so many years hence as well as at present and after he has
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
by all the Evangelists yet by Three of them very shortly and briefly as a meer circumstance remarkable chiefly for this that the Legs of the Two Thieves were broken as was usual in crucifixions whereas Christ being sooner dead prevented this and so litterally compleated that Prophecy A bone of him shall not be broken And for the sake of another Prophecy That he should be numbred with transgressors and be a Companion and fellow-Sufferer with the most infamous Criminals and Malefactors and nothing farther was intended or designed by it so far as we know or appears to us from Scripture as the proper use and the genuine purpose of it though by accident indeed it was an honourable Confession of Christ and a bearing Testimony to him before his Crucifiers and also an Owning a future state of Bliss and Happyness after this Life when a Man was going out of the World by his desiring Christ to remember him in his kingdom and Christ's promising that he should be that day with him in Paradice but these were Truths not to be learnt from hence only but elsewhere tho' they were hereby very solemnly attested to But there has been a Doctrine raised from hence and not to be learnt from any other place of Scripture never taught by Christ or any of his Apostles but wholly taken up and founded upon this Instance of one of the Thieves upon the Cross which has from a matter of History and Circumstance been improved to Teach and Advance a new Doctrine no where else to be found in the Bible namely That a wicked Man when he comes to dye may hope to be happy and go to Heaven by vertue of a sudden Conversion and a short Death-Bed Repentance though he has spent his whole Life never so carelesly and wickedly Or that a Death-Bed Repentance may be by the Gospel sufficient and effectual for a Mans Salvation who has lived a very ill Life and who does not sooner Repent of it than when he comes to dye Now this I think is not only the falsest but the most Pernicious and Mischievous Doctrine that can be for it plainly takes away the necessity of a good Life since that is not necessary which a Man can any way hope to be saved without and so tends to encourage Men to continue in their sins with the hopes that they may have time enough to repent of them when they come to dye and that there is a possible if not a likely way to save themselves at the last though they live never so wickedly provided they have but a little time and warning which hardly one in five hundred but has to perform this sudden Repentance and are not prevented to do it by a sudden Death which is an accident that happens but to few If there be nothing else but this accidental uncertainty to secure Religion and the necessity of a good Life so that otherwise a Sinner may at the last claim the full benefit of Pardon by the Gospel-Covenant if he come in then by a short Repentance though he has stood out all his life in Rebellion against God and may as we commonly say dye well and make a good end though he lived never so ill If this be true then this Gospel-Priviledge of Repentance destroys the Gospel it self and the main End and Design of it and takes away the necessity of Gospel-Holyness and Obedience in order to our future Happyness it removes and alters those Conditions of Salvation which are indispensibly required by the Gospel it abates and remits the plain terms of it and by such a clause of Priviledge takes away all the Authority and force of its Commands and all the Terror of its Threats and Punishments and in effect unlooses all our Obligations to the Law of God and to a good Life whatever does this and has such mischievous Consequences and is so contrary to the first and plainest Truths in Religion as I shall show this is cannot surely be a Gospel-Doctrine and therefore I am perswaded that is not which allows Salvation to a meer Death-Bed Repentance by the terms of the Gospel The Great thing to support this is the instance of the Thief upon the Cross Luke 23.42 43. though I shall show there is no certain ground or true foundation to be had from that of any such thing if we fully consider and examine it As to the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard Matth 20. who came in at the Eleventh hour and were rewarded as well as those who were hired at the first this belongs to another matter and is spoken in favour of the Gentiles who though not so soon called and taken into the Covenant as the Jews yet should afterwards be called and received into it and have as great Priviledges and as great a Reward as the Jews themselves who were Gods first and peculiar People hired and called in long before them So that this is foreign to the case of a late and short Repentance of a dying Christian who was called or hired as soon as he was baptized and knew Christianity and if he loyter all the day and will not work at all no not one hour or any considerable part of his Life till Night comes and then when 't is too late and he cannot work at all only falls a crying and sorrowing and repenting for this his loytering and being idle there is nothing in the Parable to excuse such an one but only those at the most who had not the knowledge of Christianity or the means of Salvation sooner offer'd them but came in and worked as soon as they had as soon as they were called and hired The Parable taken altogether must not be applyed further than this as if it extended to all those Christians who come in and Repent only at the last or even to those who have one hours time in proportion to their whole lives to do a few Acts of Obedience for it is by no means true that he who works and is Religious a short and very little part of his Life shall be as well rewarded and have as full an hire and recompence of God in another World as he who does so the whole for then God would not render to men according to their works as he hath declared he will do at the last judgment for tho' he may do what he will with his own yet his rewards and promises are now fixt and determined by a Covenant and though God might bring in the Gentiles at the latter hour and reward them as well as the Jews because there was nothing to the contrary in theirs or any other Covenant yet now as he that knows his Masters will and does it not shall be beaten with more stripes so he that hath well used Ten Talents shall have a greater improvement and greater gifts bestowed upon him and he shall have a higher reward who does more and greater Acts of Vertue in his life than he who does less for
of to those who only resolve to do so though never so sincerely And therefore should a Mans Purposes be never so sincere at that time which I doubt not but they may be as to the present sense of his Mind that is he may really intend at that time what otherwise could not be properly called a Purpose or Resolution in him yet this may not be afterwards effectual but may go off as most of the Vows of Sick Men and Ship-wrecked Mariners do when the Sickness and the Storm is over and they are just as they were before when they are well and upon dry Land for nothing is more easie and more sudden than to wish and purpose and resolve well especially when Men are under any great fear or great danger which wholly takes up their Minds and they consider not so much the difficulty of performing what they resolve upon as the necessity they see of avoiding the danger that is before them but when they are got free from that their Minds and their Purposes change as well as their Circumstances But let us allow all that can be supposed that these Purposes of the dying Sinner are not only sincere but would be effectual too if he lived which neither he nor any other but only God can know yet I see no reason to think that God will deal with him for what he might or would hereafter be and not for what he was or is at present or that the Rule of the Divine Judgment at the last day shall be this to reward Sinners because they might have been good Men if they had lived longer or to punish good Men because they might have been bad perhaps if they had lived longer too though God had seen either of these in his Infinite Prescience but thinks fit to prevent them by cutting a Man off and taking him out of the World he will not acquit or condemn him for foreseen futurities which might or would have happened but for past and certain Actions which he hath done and which God himself cannot make to be undone though he may hinder these to be done which are not and so to become nothing 'T is the present Habit and Temper and Frame of a Mans Mind and the present Moral state of Vertue or Vice which a Man is in when he dyes shall dispose him to Happiness or Misery so that 't is not he that was formerly or might hereafter be a good Man if he had lived but only he that is so at present in the disposition of his Mind and habit of his Life is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven and meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light And 't is not he that was a wicked Man heretofore or might be such afterwards if he had lived in such tryals and circumstances which it pleased God to take him away from and so in this sense take him from the evil to come but he that is a wicked Man at present in the habit of his Mind and course of his Life shall go to Hell Repentance is not a resolution to forsake Sin and become a good Man but the becoming so after we have been otherwise in any instance And he that has lived very carelesly and wickedly all his life and only resolves to live otherwise when he comes to dye can no more be called a good Man than he a good Schollar that has spent all his time idly in the University but when he is to be expelled from thence resolves to study hard Or he a Rich Man who has prodigally wasted all his Estate but when it is gone almost to the last Farthing resolves to save and become Rich. Good resolutions are good spurs to quicken and are necessary to carry on and put us upon any great or excellent design but if the design were attained as soon as it is purposed and resolved upon no Man would miss of his end nor ever fail of being Wise and Learned and rich and Great if a sudden resolution of being so would do the business Nor would any Sinner be either miserable or wicked when he comes to dye if it were sufficient to purpose and resolve at that time to become good and happy 'T is a loose and a false Notion of Repentance which places it in meer Purposes and in good Wishes and Resolutions and in a short transient passion and compunction of mind and inward working of thoughts rather than in a settled and permanent change both of Mind and Actions in a new Heart and a new Life in turning from Sin and doing that which is lawful and right in being renewed in our minds and amending and reforming our wayes in which the Scripture places it that has given occasion to this dangerous mistake of the sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance but Repentance as I have all along showed is a greater thing than most imagine 'T is not a slight Remedy but a Medicine made up indeed of a great many parts and ingredients such as Sorrow and Trouble and Fasting and Confession and good purposing and resolving and the like but till these work the Cure and make the Mind better purge out all the sickly matter free the Soul from all its Sins and restore it to a state of Vertue and Religion of Grace and Goodness they all signifie nothing for true and perfect Repentance must be like Health or a recovery after Sickness and till the Mind is brought off from its sick and weak state from all its Spiritual Maladies and Sinful Habits to a good degree of soundness and a Vertuous Crasis and Constitution so as to be free from Sin work Righteousness and perform the proper acts of the Divine Life so as the drunkard is made sober the unclean chast the unrighteous not only just but charitable the profane and irreligious devout and pious and the like it has not Repented as the Scripture requires nor is it qualified for Pardon or for future Happiness for no wicked Man in any kind shall enter into Heaven 1 Cor. 6.9 till he be made good after he has been otherwise in any instance for one wilful and habitual Sin continued in will certainly damn him and nothing but Obedience which if it be after Disobedience is called Repentance is the Gospel Condition of our Salvation and without this faith and trust in Christ and hopes in Gods Mercy and Free Grace which are the true supports and comforts to a good Man are deceitful comforts and meer delusions to a bad one for without holiness and habits of Grace and Goodness no man shall see the Lord and if we will enter into life we must keep the Commandments And God surely did not give us such Commands that we should either keep them while we live or else Repent of not doing it when we come to dye then a Man might break them all while he lives and only Repent that he had not kept them when he is a dying and this should be instead of keeping
of them which would defeat and destroy all the Gospel and all the necessity of Obedience and a Holy Life and keeping Gods Commandments and God must then alter those Terms and alter even his own Judgment at the Last Day and not judge us by our Works nor by what we have done in the flesh whether it be good or evil but only by the sincerity of our dying Repentance which I no where find mentioned nor is this dis-junctive any where in the Gospel Leave thy sins and live well and keep my Commands or else Repent and be sorry for not doing all these things at the last and that shall be as well But I shall by and by give my positive Arguments more fully against this mischievous mistake 3ly The next difficulty and the next plea for a Death-Bed Repentance is this That God may on a sudden so powerfully alter a Mans Mind and so work upon his Heart by his Spirit as to change and convert him and make him another Man in a very little time or just before he dyes I answer God may do this if he pleases to exert his utmost force and power upon us and so he may raise us again after we are dead and make us live a new Life upon Earth but we are not I suppose ordinarily to expect this no more are we the other which is as contrary to the ordinary Methods of his Grace as the other of his Providence God does not use a miraculous and extraordinary power in either and for any Man to depend upon this is a downright tempting of God and by neglecting the common means which he has put into his hands to call for a Miracle which God will not grant to the careless and idle when there is no need of it God has given us all sufficient Means sufficient Motives and Arguments sufficient Grace and Assistance to Repent and leave our Sins and if we will not make use of these but abuse the Talents he has committed to us he will not for that reason give us a double number when we come to dye and dispense the more to us for our having been idle and prodigal all our lives The habits of sin and wickedness which we have been contracting all our Lives will not be changed on a sudden when we come to dye when we have complained so long and often of our sins as being so hard to be overcome and so impossible to be left off shall we expect all of a sudden to have it become so easie a matter and so sudden a business to get rid of them when we have suffered them to run so long upon us and have not thought 'em curable by all the Methods of Grace and Religion shall we think to meet with a sudden Charme and Amulet for them that shall cure them we know not how Some Men talk of infused habits without being able to reconcile them either to Sense or to Nature and of instantaneous Conversion without being able to give any one example of any such thing from all the Scripture some indeed were suddenly and miraculously converted to Christianity as St. Paul and the Goaler and a Man may be brought to believe otherwise than he did by such a strong Argument as a Revelation which shall immediately turn his Judgment and Understanding but to have him that has been along while accustomed to do evil in an instant do good is without president in Scripture and no way reconcileable with that known place of Jerem. 13.23 A Man cannot suddenly step out of the wayes of Vice into those of Vertue they do not lye near but contrary to one another so that a Man must go back and undo his vitious habits and unravel all his sinful customs by degrees before he can attain to the contrary Vertuous ones which are not to be acquired without great pains and time and long care and watchfulness To root out Vice and make Grace grow in the heart is not an easie nor a sudden work we find how much it costs us to mortifie a lust to conquer a passion to master an ill inclination and what pains we must take with our selves to do this and can we think all this may be done on a sudden by a Man who has all his days lived loosely and given the reins to all these that he can be made that in a moment which he could not be made all his Life God may indeed give him a New Soul and that a very Vertuous one and Annihilate his Old one that was so habitually vitious but to make that good in a moment is more difficult than the other more contrary to Nature and what is as little to be expected so far as I know from God The summe is none but a good Man can go to Heaven and none can be made such on a sudden without a Miracle and no Man can expect to be saved by that but by the ordinary Means and Grace of the Gospel Those Graces and Vertuous habits which can alone qualifie and make us meet for Heaven cannot be brought into our Souls on a sudden nor can any sudden Convictions or sudden Thoughts and sudden Passions change and alter a Mans mind so as to renew it and put it in another frame and make it inwardly Holy and Righteous when it was habitually bad before without so much time and so many Acts of Obedience as shall change its Principles Thoughts Inclinations Affections Temper Disposition and the like In vain had God commanded us so many Vertues and so many Acts of Obedience as Qualifications and Conditions to fit our Minds for Eternal happyness if without living in those and performing them any time our Souls might be disposed and fitted for it There cannot be a sufficient change of the Mind for this purpose without change of Life and Actions To talk of inward Principles of Grace in the heart without vital Acts of Holyness and Obedience in the Life and that an old Sinner by such a new Principle infused into him is a kind of Embrio Saint just conceived though not formed as he should be nor able to performe any Acts of Obedience is to strain a Metaphor and depend upon a Similitude without rightly understanding the thing Every Christian hath this inward Principle of Grace infused into him by vertue of his Baptisme and Christianity and it exerts it self with his own will and endeavours all his Life unless hindred by him and it is never perfectly taken away from any perhaps or at least only from the most Vile and Profligate of Sinners in this World but it will and doth stir and move even in very wicked Minds but this is all ineffectual and to no purpose unless it produce Acts of Vertue and Obedience and a Good Life without which it neither Sanctifies nor Regenerates nor makes us good Men nor fit for Heaven and without those which are the Vital Motions and Effectual Operations of this Grace of the Gospel which is given
down his Government of the World if he were merciful contrary to those and should not so far regard his own Honour and assert his Power and Authority and Justifie the goodness of his Laws as to revenge all open affronts against them and punish all great and notorious and habitual Sinners notwithstanding all their Prayers and Entreaties to the contrary If the cryes and lamentations of a dying Sinner should make God forgive him out of meer pity and tenderness though he had broke all the Laws of Heaven in his life and lived in direct opposition against them and never took any care to keep them this must alter the Rule of God's Government the Rule of the Gospel and the Rule of his last Judgment and he must for his sake break and act contrary to all those If notwithstanding those Gods Pity and Mercy to a poor Wretch could suffer or incline him to do this we might then as reasonably hope that this his pity might reach even to the damned in Hell their Case is very pitiable and very lamentable as well as the others and their cryes and howlings and lamentations are very loud and importunate but they are unreasonable and too late and therefore God is deaf to them one would think if Pity could so over-rule Justice as to prevail with it to dispense with the severe and righteous Rules lay'd down by the great God it would put out the flames of Hell or let the tears and cryes of the damned quench those dreadful and Everlasting burnings and not suffer so many poor and miserable Creatures to lye tortured for ever in the utmost Extremity but God's Justice and Judgment is as deep and bottomless as Hell it self and though we cannot search into all the reasons of it yet we know by his word that it shall take place and be duely executed notwithstanding his own greatest Pity and Mercy or his Creatures greatest Cryes and Lamentations A groundless presumption of God's Mercy and Pity hath ruined many Souls The Gospel declares the highest instances and degrees of it in the Redemption of the World by Jesus Christ and in pardoning our sins upon our Repentance and to show this required a wonderful Method and most Stupendous Expedient thus to find out a way to reconcile Gods Justice and Mercy together by the Sacrifice of Christ now this utmost Grace and Mercy of Heaven neither does nor could go farther than past Sins upon Repentance and Amendment Obedience and a good Life afterwards to expect any Mercy from God beyond this beyond the Gospel and the Rules and measures of Mercy there layd down is the most vain and groundless and presumptuous thing i' the World and so 't is for a dying unprepared Sinner to think he can do any thing then by which he may hope to prevail with Christ and to enter into Heaven For alass what can he then do He can use strong Crying and Tears and Prayers to God so did the Virgins and so may the Damned but alass for what can he pray That God would save him without Obedience and a good Life which he has declared he never will that he would not now punish him for a wicked and impenitent and disobedient life which he assuredly will do that he may not now be shut out when the Bridegroom is coming though he is no way prepared for it and has no Oyle in his Lamp no vertuous habits and Dispositions of mind to fit him to go in and now 't is too late to get them all on a sudden and in vain to expect to borrow this Oyl of others or to have it given by the Bridegroom himself would he pray now to God to give him Grace when he has despised and rejected it all his Life would he now have it grow up into vertuous habits and the frults of Obedience and a good life all on a sudden would he now become a new Man and a new Creature in a few hours and from a wicked Man all his life become a good one in a few days He may almost as well hope that God should make him young again now he is old and turn his old and weak and dying Body into a young and lusty and healthful one and work those mighty Miracles upon his Body as well as his Mind by his Prayers God can do the one by an Almighty Irresistible power as well as the other if he pleases but 't is very vain and groundless to depend upon the utmost of what God's power is able to do in any thing and therefore that is never to be brought in for or against any thing of this Nature The only question is not what God but what such a wicked Man and dying Sinner can then do can he have all his old habits of vice and wickedness rooted out and his Nature changed and a vertuous and holy disposition of mind planted in their stead Can that lust or sinful Inclination which was so hard to be conquered before that he pretended it was impossible for him almost to leave it can this now be so soon and so easily overcome All those Corruptions and Diseases of Soul which have been so long upon him that they are become chronical and habitual and which were before incurable by all the means of Grace and methods of Providence by all the advices and exhortations of his own Friends and God's Ministers are these now to be perfectly got off and cured on a sudden and the Mind restored to Soundness and Holyness Is that now to be done so easily and so quickly which he found so hard to do all his life and which is one of the hardest and most difficult things in the World to make a Bad Man a Good one No this is Unnatural and Impossible and cannot be in the Nature of the thing but a Man may be very sorrowful and heartily troubled that he was not so and have great trouble and remorse of Mind for his sins and so be heartily penitent for them This is all he can be and he cannot well be otherwise if he be in his Senses and hath the use of his Reason and sees such Terrible danger before him as is now unavoidable he must be greatly troubled that he hath brought himself to that that is that he must suffer for his Sin for he was never troubled at the Sin before nor would be now but like it and live in it still if that were all but he cannot but be concerned at the dreadful punishment of it and he must be very hardy indeed if he go not thus Shivering and Contrite and Penitent as they call it to his Execution this is only a Natural abhorring of pain or what is evil to us from a principle of Self-preservation not an abhorrence of Sin from Choice and Reason and free apprehension of Mind for all this is from a force and violence offered to the mind by a sense of present danger and from that Fear Terrour and Confusion that a
Happyness and Salvation Now no Man can in any sense call the Sorrows and Remorses and Repentance of dying Sinners Gospel Obedience but only a trouble and concern for the want of it and for the disobedience of their whole lives There would be no difference between Obedience and Disobedience if this were so No Master or Father would account him an Obedient Servant or Obedient Son who should only confess and be sorry that he had always disobeyed him until upon this his sorrow he showed himself Obedient for the future and did him some faithful Service How long a Man must be Obedient after he hath been Disobedient or how long time is required for a Sinner who repents to come off from his Sins and become a good Man is hard to determine exactly but there must be so much time as shall make a Drunkard sober a Whoremonger chast an unjust Man Righteous a Swearer and Prophane Person Devout and Pious the Covetous Man Just and Charitable and the like for we are assured that whilst Men are such Sinners as any of those they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 and therefore they must so long obey the Laws of God till they are truly become and may be denominated Sober Just Charitable Pure Holy Religious and the like for Heaven is a place only for such Men and such Souls as are thus qualified and who have obeyed Gods Laws so long till they are become thus It shall never be given to those who have been disobedient to God all their lives and can now performe no acts of Obedience to him such can never perform that Indispensable Condition of Salvation required by the Gospel and nothing less then this will do there is no such disjunctive any where in the Bible that I know of to this sense Be Holy and Obedient and lead a Good Life in order to be Fternally happy or else Repent and be Sorry for not doing it when you come to dye but only thus where you have sinned and been disobedient for the time past Repent and be Obedient for the time to come and this shall be accepted as in that known place when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right he shall save his soul alive Ezek. 18.27 'T is his doing that which is lawful and right i. e. his Obedience for the future shall save his soul alive all his transgressions that he hath committed they shall not be mentioned unto him upon his new Obedience or Repentance in his Righteousness that he hath done shall he live ver 22. it must be Righteousness afterwards or his obeying God after his former disobedience shall entitle him to Life and Happyness and be the Condition of it 2. As Obedience is the only term and condition of our Salvation by the Gospel so there is no just reason or good ground to hope that God will in any case abate of the termes of Salvation he hath there lay'd down or be mercyful beyond those for two reasons 1. Because this would be neither consistent with the Holiness of his Nature nor the wisdom of his Government for as he is a Holy and Righteous God he cannot love any but a righteous and good Soul and so cannot make any other happy because a wicked and impure Soul is contrary to his Nature and what he hates and abominates and what can never see or enjoy God neither is it consistent with the Wisdom of God as Governour of the World to reward any but the obedient and the righteous for it would reflect upon his Justice and his Authority if he should suffer Men to go on in their Wickedness and Disobedience all their lives and not punish them for it Mercy indeed and Clemency is the Honour of any Prince and that which commends him to the love and esteem of all but then it must be shown wisely to proper and fit Objects and for good Reasons to bring Men in to their Duty and draw them off from their Disobedience with the promise of a Pardon upon their doing so and returning to their Allegiance But if a Prince shall grant this to all sort of Offenders out of the weakness and softness of his Temper he will loosen his Government and weaken his Authority and make himself cheap and contemptible and as he will encourage Rogues and Rebels so he will injure the Publick and not take due care as becomes a wise Governour of the Common good should God grant a full and absolute pardon to Sinners who have lived never so long in their sins because they are very sorry for them when they come to dye and they can live in them no longer this would encourage Men who love their Sins to continue in 'em all their lives and then Repent at last and so save themselves the trouble as they think it of living a very good life God indeed has promised pardon to all who repent and turn from their sins and live good and holy lives after they have lived bad ones and this is sufficient encouragement to make a wicked Man become a good one with the certain hopes that when he does so God will receive him but to go farther and suppose God to pardon a long wicked life spent altogether in Sin and Disobedience merely for a little sorrow and remorse and trouble when Men come to dye is to open a wide Door to vice and wickedness and to supersede the necessity of Obedience and a good life and therefore should God grant this it would destroy Religion and take off the Obligations to Vertue and make all his Motives to Obedience and Threatnings against Sin to be void empty and ineffectual 2. There is no Reason to think God will abate of the termes of the Gospel and be more merciful than he has there promised to be because as the Gospel seems to contain the utmost Grace and Mercy that God can show to Men so it shall certainly be the Rule of the last judgment and God will then proceed and pronounce judgment according to the Rules and Measures of that 't is the most vain and impudent thing in the World to expect any further Mercy than God has revealed to vs by Jesus Christ He hath in all probability shown the utmost kindness and favour that is possible to Mankind for his sake he has opened the bowels of his Mercy and the Riches of his Grace as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.7 and has exhausted all the treasures of love and compassion to poor Sinners that a Wise and Just God can possibly show with consistence to his own honour and the honour of his Laws and Government to expect therefore that God should be gracious beyond the Gospel and make farther and greater abatements to us and be more merciful than he hath promised to be by his Son whom he sent with the most full and gratious Message of loving kindness
of Religion and now he denyes those and his Life both alike because he cannot keep them Is he now to begin to practice the Vertues of Chastity and Temperance and Sobriety which he never did before then he hath put them off to a very convenient season when his Vices have quite left him and so if Vertues will come of themselves like guests uninvited there is no other company to hinder them but he was as vertuous and sober almost half his Life I mean when he was asleep as he can be now when he is as incapable of the contrary acts as he was then and is only like the Enthusiast cured of seeing vanity when he lost his Eyes but perhaps not of being vain for the ghosts and spirits of his departed Sins may still haunt and possess him If these Christian Vertues are necessary to be practiced in order to our Eternal Salvation a dying Repentance cannot be sufficient without them if it be then those particular Precepts and Commands must be set aside by it as well as the other general ones I mentioned for 't is certain he can no more practice these Vertues now than he could in his Mothers Womb and they might be as well infused into him then as they can be now without any practice and something better because there were then no contrary Habits to hinder them But the Doctrine of infused Habits is like the Hypothesis of Transfusion of Blood contrary to Nature and Experience and the dying Man may as well depend upon one for his Body as the other for his Soul 3. The salvability and sufficiency of a meer dying Repentance as it sets by and discharges us from all those general and particular Commands of Christianity so also from the whole Christian engagement and Baptismal Covenant For can that then be any way made good or performed in any measure when a Man has violated it all his Life and notoriously broken it in all the parts that belong to it Can he then sufficiently renounce the Devil and all his works when he hath hitherto complyed with them the pomps and vanities of this wicked World when he has minded nothing else and the sinful Lufts of the Flesh when he has followed them and been led by them all his dayes Can he then keep Gods Commandments who hath broken most of them and walk in the same all the dayes of his Life who hath walked all his days in the ways of Sin and the paths of Unrighteousness and never left them till just now he is at his journeys end and can live no longer Surely this Baptismal Covenant is made only pro formâ and is but a modish and mannerly Ceremony at our entring into Christianity if we are not more obliged to stand to it and make it good and expect the benefits of Christianity upon our so doing in some further and better manner of performance than a wicked Christian can do when he comes to dye If his meer Sorrows and Purposes and Resolutions will serve instead of all that is expresly or implicitely meant by it it is void and null in all the other parts of it and the Church has unfaithfully and unsincerely drawn it up in other words of a different sense and meaning that signifie nothing and the Scripture hath exprest it as odly and unfitly when it speaks of our dying to Sin and rising unto Righteousness by our Baptism That we are symbolically buried with Christ by baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likness of his resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin for he that is dead is free from sin ver 5 6 7. Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord ver 11. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God ver 12.13 Here is enough to give us the plain meaning of Baptism and the great obligation of it to renounce Sin and live a good and holy Life And we are then said to put on Christ and to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.24 and to put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ver 22. and to be regenerated and born again and have a Spiritual Principle of Life and Holiness communicated to our Souls and we then voluntarily consent to the terms of Christianity and solemnly engage and undertake to live according to them now all this which is very great and very obliging one would think is made very little and very easily took off and abated and dispensed with if when it has been utterly neglected and disregarded violated and broken all our lives a mere short and Dying Repentance will make it up and supply all the failures and the whole non-performance of it I own that true and timely Repentance will relieve us against the many failures and breaches of it by bringing us to performe it better afterwards sincerely endeavouring to make it good when we have broken it by any wilful sin and upon our performance of it though not with perfect exactness yet with sincere integrity depends our Title to all the Priviledges of Christianity But now to have no regard to it or take any care to observe it nor make it any way good in our lives but to live loosely and wickedly as if we had no such strict Engagement and Obligation upon us and to allow our selves in notorious Sins and unlawful Liberties expresly contrary to our Baptismal Covenant and yet think to salve all and have the whole benefit of it by a short Sorrow and Repentance when we come to dye this is either to make it have no meaning at all or that we are not obliged to the performance of it but let us not deceive our selves whosoever doth not make good his Baptismal Covenant in his Life which a wicked Man cannot at his Death as he is false to Christ and breaks his own most solemn and voluntary engagements so he forfeits all the benefits of his Christianity all that Pardon and Salvation which Christ hath purchased and proposed to him Thus all the Obligations to Christian Holiness and Obedience layd upon us either by our own Baptismal Vows and Promises or by the particular or general Commands of God and our Saviour are all taken away and dissolved by this loose Doctrine of
future Misery and his Punishment shall be much lessened by it This is a very great thing if we duely consider it and worth all his most earnest Prayers and deepest Sorrow and Compunction and all he can do to save him from those highest and extremest degrees of Misery Hell indeed is a general word for future Misery in Scripture as Heaven is for Happyness but they consist not in one and the same indivisible thing but are Two States of very various and different and unequal degrees according to the Deserts and Capacities of those who are in them As there are several degrees of Good and Bad Men here upon Earth so there will be of happy and miserable Souls in Heaven and Hell some are very imperfectly but yet sincerely good and are far from such Obedience and perfection as Human Nature might come up to and those being without any wilful and deliberate and great Sin shall be in the lowest place in Heaven and lower than this the Scripture allows none to go thither they who live in any such one known and habitual sin and wickedness are such Sinners as are expresly excluded from thence They have another place and state allotted to them in the other World for there being no third or middle state revealed by Scripture but only those two of Heaven and Hell they must necessarily go to the latter and there according to the Nature or Quality or Degrees of their Sin be punisht with many or fewer stripes and be in a state of greater or lesser Misery according as their Lives and their Deserts have been The Valley of Hinnom from whence comes Gehenna which we translate Hell was a deep Valley near Hierusalem where the Canaanites burnt their Children alive to Moloch and used all direful noises to hinder their cries and lamentations from being heard and afterwards the Jews say that Josias turned it into the place of publick Executions and that all Carkasses and Dung and filthy things were thrown there to prevent the noysomness of which there was a perpetual fire always burning in that place that was never put out at any time The Scripture has made this the chiefest image and representation of Hell and from thence describes the Misery of it by fire and burnings which give one of the most general and sensible ideas of Pain and torment Both the Spiritual Happyness of Heaven and Misery of Hell must be thus represented to the gross Thoughts of Mankind by the most delightful and most painful things known to their Senses that they are best acquainted with in this World and which will make the strongest impression upon them though they may be in themselves of another Nature fitted chiefly to the Souls and Spirits and Rational faculties of Men in their separate state and the happyness or misery of those is chiefly designed by them God we know is a Consuming fire to the wicked but he will very differently punish them though fire seems to carry one equal idea of pain and torment yet as our Saviour says that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment and they are set forth for an example in Scripture suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. then for that City who rejected the Gospel Matth. 10.15 so it shall be more tolerable for such wicked Men who have been so in a lesser degree in their Lives and at their Deaths have been as penitent as they could be then for Sinners of an higher order and a more daring and impenitent sort Heaven and Hell being taken for Places rather than States seem to our Imaginations to imply and signifie one equal and indivisible perfect and complete and same idea of Happyness or Misery that shall belong to all alike who are sentenced to either of those but there are very great Differences and Degrees in them a thousand times more than there is in the different States of Happiness or Misery among Men in this World where in the same place and upon the same Globe we see some in very happy circumstances and mighty enjoyments others in great Pain and Misery and a most pitiable Condition this here is only a Tryal of them and not according to their deserts but it shall be so exactly in another Wold the great day of Recompence and Retribution Then they who have done most Evil and committed most sins and not repented of them in time but gon on to provoke and disobey God and despise and neglect Religion all their lives these shall suffer the sad and utmost Vengeance of God's Anger and of Eternal fire All other wicked Men of what sort soever whether they were Sinners above others or only lived in some sins without Repentance and Amendment these shall be for ever in a very bad state a state of Misery and loss of true happiness and their Misery shall be exactly proportioned to their sins and be in the same degrees and measures that those were which are all known to the infinitely wise and Just God who without respect of persons will then render to all according to their works and with an equal and impartial Justice distribute-those Rewards and Punishments to them They then who have served God best in their lives shall be best rewarded by him they who have suffered with Christ shall then reign with him they who endured any afflictions for his sake and the Gospels shall have the greater Glory which those are not to be compared to they shall receive a hundred fold for all they have done or suffered for Christ not only for suffering Persecution though Martyrdom has always had a brighter and a weightier Crown assigned to it but for denying any present Interest or worldly gain or unlawful pleasure and sensual Inclination for the sake of Vertue and Religion then those who have best improved their Talents to Gods Glory and the good of others and the Service of Religion shall have more gifts and rewards from their great Lord they who have turned many unto Righteousness shall shine as the stars in Glory in several Orbs and different degrees of Light and Lustre for as the Apostle says one star differeth from another in glory 1 Cor. 15.41 and So likewise shall it be at the Resurrection and in another World there shall be different degrees of happyness and glory for Good Men both in their Bodies and Souls according to their different degrees of Goodness Service and Obedience to God in this life There being but two places or rather two States in another World appointed for all rational beings that ever were created as seems plain by the Scripture Revelation where so far as it describes or gives us a Map of that Invisible and unknown World it divides it only into two Mighty Kingdoms or vast Regions an upper and a lower parted from one another by unknown bounds and inhabited by Good and Bad Spirits where the one are very happy and the other very miserable there being but
two such Receptacles for the Souls of all Men and Angels to spend an Eternity in for the fixt continuance and Eternal Duration of their state is more plainly revealed then their particular State and Condition so that all Rational Souls must be consigned to one of those States and Places for they who have made a Third or Fourth have made it only out of their own brains and imaginations not out of any Scriptural foundation or Authority there must be allowed to be very great differences and unequal degrees of happiness or misery in those two places or else neither the Justice of God nor the different Cases of Men can be accounted for with any tolerable ease and satisfaction to our thoughts or be any way reconciled to the principles either of Reason or Religion God the Just and All-knowing Judge will give all allowances to the hard circumstances the invincible ignorance the unavoidable failures the powerful temptations the particular cases and several disadvantages that any of Mankind have been under and with the fairest and most impartial equity will adjudge all their Conditions and proportion their future Rewards and Punishments according to what is due to them all things considered according to the right or wrong use of that freedom and liberty which he gave them and the faults or vertues under that light and knowledge they had of their own wills and choices by which alone they can either be or be denominated good or bad Men Some of Mankind seem not to have either vertues enough to qualifie them for Heaven or to be so wilfully vitious as to deserve Hell but to be in a kind of middle state here between Vertue and Vice whatever they shall be in hereafter and many who are guilty of some Vices which the Scripture declares damnable and exclusive of Heaven yet are not of such downright Irreligion and General Profligacy and Debauchery as others Thus also many have some real sense of Religion but yet are but weakly moved and influenced by it and do but just live in a very low way of Grace and Vertue and are not so Rich in good works nor do so abound in Acts of Piety Zeal Usefulness and Charity as others Therefore one Equal Complete Perfect Entire State either of Happiness or Misery cannot belong to all these alike but Heaven or Hell are proportionable unequal different conditions of both exactly suited and fitted to the Moral and Religious Deserts Capacities and Qualifications of all Rational Beings in which they shall be fixt to all Eternity without alteration though perhaps not without further improvements and gradual risings and fallings according to the Nature of either of those States These Thoughts have been a great ease and satisfaction to my self in the Conception of the great and amazing things of another World and I therefore communicate them not only on the fore-mentioned account but because they may be so to others who consider those greatest Objects of Meditation with any penetration of thought according to the best helps we have of Philosophy and Scripture and I am perswaded it would be good Service to Religion if it were thus fairly reconciled in all the revealed Truths and Articles of it to the thoughts of inquisitive Men as I doubt not but it may be but this is a subject of another Nature which I am not now to meddle withal CHAP. VI. Practical Rules and Directions concerning the Particular Exercise of Repentance I Shall now consider the Particular Exercise of Repentance taken as a single Duty distinct from all others of Obedience which are in the largest sense involved in it and without which it is not effectual to Pardon and Salvation as I have all along shown but Repentance taken singly for a particular act of a Sinner just struck and affected with a sense of his Sins and exercising at set times Penitential Reflections and proper Actions upon the thoughts and remembrance of them this which is often called Repentance and is so in some sense but not sufficient to compleat this Duty and to entitle us to all the effects of Repentance as they are promised to it in Scripture in a more large and comprehensive Notion as including a good Life and all manner of Obedience after we have failed and come short in any point This which I would call Penitence or Penance as being a Penal Exercise or Penitential Course and Discipline fit for a Sinner to go through after he has committed any great Sin or whenever he seriously remembers and considers and recollects as he ought often to do with himself the most considerable miscarriages of his Life This consists in these following things 1. In confessing of his Sin 2. In inward and outward Sorrow for it 3. In Humiliations Bodily Austerities and Mortifications and especially Fasting as the chief of them In these the Scripture and the Church and the custom of good Men in all Ages have placed this Exercise of Repentance as consisting of such Penitential Acts not as a permanent Habit of renewed Obedience and recovered Vertue nor as if the Essence or the formal Vertue and proper fruits of it lay in these but in Reformation of Heart and Life Conversion and Obedience to God but these are the buds and blossoms of those fruits of Repentance the seeds and the signs of it or at least the outward concomitants and attendants of it and such a retinue as are proper to go along with it for the solemnity at least and decent performance of it if not as absolutely necessary to the thing it self Necessary generally in private but alwayes in publick Acts or Expressions of Repentance wherein a publick reparation and satisfaction is to be given to Gods Honour and Authority his Judgments to be averted and his Anger deprecated and a common sense and apprehension of all this to be promoted and inculcated among others as in publick Penances and National Repentances and therefore we read chiefly of these upon such occasions both in Scripture and Ecclesiastical Writers Open Sins are a dishonouring of God an affronting and despising his Power and Authority a setting up our Wills against his a gratifying and indulging our selves in undue liberties and unlawful inclinations of Body Now 't is fit therefore in our Repentance for them wherein we make what amends we can to God and repair the injury we have done him and undo the Sin as far as we are able and show our utmost displeasure against it that we should fall down before him and confess it and be sorry for it and humble our selves to him and own our vileness and wretchedness and unworthiness and express the deepest resentments of it and show our anger against our selves and revenge it very severely and afflict our Souls and our Bodies with something that shall not be very grateful to them nor pleasant and acceptable to our Senses The design of all this is to beget in our Mind such thoughts of our Sins and such passions and
down his eyes Psal 119.136 And the Scripture describes Repentance by a broken and a contrite heart Psal 51.17 in opposition to a hard and impenitent one All Penitents are drawn with a sad and mournful look with tears in their eyes and sorrow in their hearts smiting their breasts and wringing their hands and all the figures of Grief and Lamentation and covered with a veil of sadness and disconsolateness For Grief and Sorrow are Passions of Soul upon the presence of any evil that is afflicting and uneasie to us and Sin being the greatest of those evils should cause the highest of those passions and we have more reason to be sorry and lament for it than a Widow over her lost Husband or a Mother over her first-born that is dead or a Friend over another that is murthered ruined and undone for our Souls ought to be dearer to us than any thing else and Sin kills ruins and murthers them But here I must interpose a Caution Sin is a Spiritual Evil and works not upon our Bodily Passions so strongly and deeply as those other objects may which are more suited to them and more fit to excite such animal sensations and impressions as Naturally rise from them Thus sensible Beauty may charm our Animal Spirits more than the Intellectual Pulchritude of Vertue and Musick may more ravish us than the harmony of Reason or then the thoughts of the Heavenly singing and Hallelujah and these and the tasts of some sensible dainties may more affect us with a sensible pleasure than the very joyes and pleasures of Heaven as we can now conceive them for they are more suited to our Animal Nature and more agreeable to the mixt Faculties arising from the union of our Souls and Bodies and so there may be more pain and sorrow felt for a Wound in a Mans Body than for a Sin in his Soul and more tears shed for the misfortune of a Friend or the loss of a Child or a near Relation than for the miscarriage of our Lives or the commission of a Sin for the one is a sorrow of another nature and another kind raised not by Sense but by Reason not Natural but Religious not from Mechanism of Body but Consideration of Mind and therefore the greatness or the sincerity of our Repentance is not to be measured by the quantity of our Tears or the number of our Sighs or the degrees alwayes of Animal Sorrow but rather by the sincerity of our Wills and the actual performance of our good Purposes of forsaking and amending our Sins which are the only sure marks of our disliking them and being sorry for them and having a true hatred and aversion to them for those secret and inward Passions of Mind are not to be known often either by our selves or others but by the effects and we can only know we love Vertue and hate Sin by following the one and forsaking the other for no Man loves a thing heartily but if it be in his power he will attain it and no Man otherwise loves Vertue or Heaven No Man hates any thing or is heartily sorry for any evil but if it be in his power he will remove it if present and avoid it if absent No Man can know he has the love of God but by this in which the Scripture places it by keeping his Commandments 1 John 5.3 and therefore I am afraid that School distinction between Contrition and Attrition that the one is a Sorrow from the Love of God and the other from the Fear of Hell and so the one is sufficient and the other is not has little or nothing in it but words by which Men may easily cheat and deceive themselves for the secret springs and principles of Mens Passions lye too deep to be discerned and they run into one another and are so mixt and confounded that they cannot be distinguished neither is there any great difference between them and only the effects of them are taken notice of in the account of God and the concerns of Religion It is a meer Nicety to distinguish such Principles in the first forming of Repentance like looking for the colours of Flowers or taste of Fruit in the several Seeds of them whereas he that from true Religious Principles be they either Love Hope or Fear and they generally are mixt and combined together and we cannot divide the force or weight of each of them severally upon the Mind whoever I say from these or any or all of these is so concerned for his past Sins that he leaves them and forsakes them and becomes a good Man he has undoubtedly true Repentance and whatever the Principle of it was whether Love or Fear and whatever degree there was in the sorrow and trouble and concern for it it is that fruit and effect and permanent issue and result of it that constitutes and denominates it true and perfect Repentance Let not therefore any Man doubt his Repentance who has this evidence and demonstration of it and let no Man deceive himself without this and think that the Keys of the Church any thing the Minister can do for him or any thing that Christ has done for him or the Merit of his Blood or any Free-Grace or any Faith in him or any thing that a deluded and impenitent Sinner is willing to catch hold off can turn his Sorrow be it never so great and be it from what Principle soever either of Love or Fear into perfect and sufficient Repentance without the effect of Reformation and a good Life and performing the Conditions of the Gospel necessary to Salvation Godly Sorrow is an excellent means and a good beginning of Repentance 't is sowing in tears those seeds of Religion which may grow up to maturity of goodness and amendment of Life and if those penitential tears wash away the filth of our Sins and cleanse the hands and purifie the heart of a Sinner they are then true Repentance If the Salt that is in them eat out our Corruption and preserve us from all impurities afterwards and the bitterness of the Sorrow makes us disrelish and dislike our Sins ever after and wean and turn away our Affections from them and like the Waters of Siloam work upon us and perform the Cure when they are thus stirred and impregnated with a Divine Vertue by the moving of Heaven upon them then they are of great Vertue and ought to be frequently used and cherish'd and indulged as they were of old for this purpose by the devout and tender Penitents But all Constitutions can no more weep and shed tears alike than they can make the Hairs of their Head white or black and tho' all should be sorry for their Sins as being convinced in their Minds of the evil of them yet the passionate degrees and the outward expressions of this Sorrow fall not under any rules or measures but are best judged and known by the effect which is leaving them as what we do not
corrupting an antient Practice and using the Keys of the Church only to unlock the Consciences first and then the Purses of the Laity and is a wretched Corruption of the true Notion of Repentance by making it a light and transient thing and that the least degree of Sorrow by the Power of the Keys is sufficient for Pardon and Salvation From them I doubt not came the first loose and wretched Mistakes about Repentance and these being joyned with the false and unwary Doctrines of others about Justifying and Saving Faith its being a mere fiduciary Relyance upon Christ and his Merits and that we were to be saved by the free Grace of the Gospel without Obedience to its Commands or Performing its Conditions and that God's Grace was so powerful and miraculous in the Conversion of a Sinner that it did its work Instantaneously and Irresistibly these hindred Men from performing that Duty that true Repentance and Obedience which they thought upon some accounts not so necessary or that they expected could be done for them in an instant and so they need not trouble themselves about it all their lives by these Reserves and false Principles and comfortable as they call 'em but deceitful Doctrines they shifted off the difficult task of leaving all their Sins and leading a good life which otherwise must be owned to be the only true way to Salvation and Happiness and when this appears clearly to us as it will if we rightly understand Religion nothing but downright Atheism and disbelieving it will hinder the Power and Efficacy of it upon our lives But as to the Usefulness of those Penitential Austerities and Mortifications and Acts of Humiliation though private Repentance may be without them yet they may be of some good Use and Advantage both as means to promote it and as signs fit to express it Thus fasting especially and abstinence from food is a proper way both of afflicting the Soul and of bringing the body into subjection and as feasting in the Nature of the thing is improper for one Sorrowing Mourning and Repenting as we ought often to be upon serious and sad Reflections made upon our Sins so for many Sins pampering and indulging the Carkass is adding fuel to them and to abate and substract from our Meat and drink is to cut off those Recruits and Nourishments which usually make provision for the flesh and maintain the lusts thereof Now then private prudence and discretion will advise every good Man to make use of that which he finds may be so useful and instrumental to the purposes of Vertue and to the designs of Religion but to enjoyn it further and lay an absolute necessity of it to all Persons and Tempers as of Prayer giving Alms and other Christian Duties this is more than either the Church or the Scripture does ever warrant I speak as to private Repentance which is effectual to every Mans Pardon and Salvation as to publick such as the Publick Fasts commanded by Authority either in the Jewish or Christian Church there the Nature of the thing and Obedience to those who were lawful Governours made it a Duty to comply with their Religious Commands and Designs and to Express our Publick and Solemne Repentance by such signs as are fit and usual on such an occasion and not to keep a Festival when our Governours and our Christian Neighbours and our Sins and the fear of some Judgment call upon us for Fasting and Humiliation but bow long we are then to fast and whether to eat nothing till the Evening and what kind of Meat is what our Health and Constitution and a little degree of Prudence joyned with a good sense of Religion will direct us in without a Confessor He is a Slave to his Appetite and makes a God of his Belly who cannot deny himself a meal now and then upon such an account and he is a weak and Superstitious Creature who thinks Religion lies in some strict and little niceties of performing this without regard to his Health and the more true and proper designs of it Fasting has been alwayes observed by Devout and Pious Penitents in all Ages as an Exercise of penitence and a help to Devotion and Religion and Lent or the Antepaschal Fast is especially of great Usage and Antiquity in the Christian Church but not observed alike in all places as is plain from Irenaeus and others but it was chiefly designed for Publick Penitence of notorious Sinners who were to be restored to the Communion of the Church and Receiving the Sacrament at Easter but it may be of good Use to the private Repentance of every particular Christian who ought to set aside some time for the Examining of himself and the Reflecting upon his past Sins and as long as he lives he ought to Exercise a particular Repentance for all the wilful Sins he ever committed and to have some appointed times to offer up the Sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart and to let his heart bleed afresh and pierce it self very deeply with the remembrance of its past Sins which though God has forgotten so as not to punish yet he ought never to forget so as not to Repent of them I mention not other Bodily penances such as putting on Sackcloth and Ashes which were Eastern Modes of Mourning but do no more oblige us than rending our Garments and pouring out Water which were used by them and as to whipping and going bare-foot which one calls the penance of a Goose Some of those which are in use in the Roman Church are rather Heathenish than Christian Customs like Baals Priests Cutting and Lancing themselves and they are no more proper to Cure Men of their Sins or be Helps to Repentance than the taking a Purge or Vomit which would work as effectually upon their Minds and expel their Vices and Corruptions as well as any of those Penitential Rods and Disciplines upon the backs of Fools who understand not what true Repentance is All such Bodily Exercise profiteth nothing to the freeing from their sins but is only a commuting with God for them and makes them believe that repentance lyes only in such an opus operatum which however severe it seems yet is much easier than to leave their Sins and their beloved Lusts as we find many of our Lovers of Wine rather choose to take Physick now and then to cure their Head-ach than to become sober which would do it much better But true Repentance is not to be known or judged of by such unnatural follies which they call the fruits but are not so much as the shadows of true Repentance nor by any of these External Symptoms or Acts of Penitence which are the most proper Exercises or Attendants of it but by the Change wrought upon our Hearts and Lives and the Effectual Amendment and Reformation of both as we are to judge of the Soundness and Goodness of our Health not by the strength or bitterness of the Physick we
took in order to it or by the Ragimen and Rules we observed in taking it though they might be necessary and of good use nor by its manner of working upon us but by the effect of it which is its Curing us when that is done by whatever wayes it was so the work is done and the end attained and till it be nothing is done to any purpose which brings me to the last head of Discourse Namely the Marks and Signs of True Repentance CHAP. VII How we may know we have Repented and are in a Pardoned and Good State NOthing is of greater importance to us than to make a right judgment of our selves as to our Spiritual State to know whether we are in a State of Grace and Pardon with God whether our Condition be such that we may reasonably hope we are in his Favour at present and have a Title to Heaven and Happiness hereafter No Man that believes Religion and is not perfectly thoughtless and stupid but must upon the account of these things have the greatest Peace and Comfort of Mind or the greatest uneasiness and disturbance For nothing is so great an object of our Hopes and Fears and does so highly affect us as these will or ought to do No Man should one would think enjoy himself one moment or be at quiet in his thoughts who is in a state of enmity with the great God and lives under his anger and displeasure and however he may escape here yet lyes under the dread and terrour and amazing danger of another World To know and examine and be able to judge of this should one would think be very plain because the Rule is so by which we are to judge our selves and by which God will judge us The Terms and Conditions of our Salvation are laid down very clearly in Scripture sincere and constant Obedience to Gods Laws or where we fail of performing that true Repentance which is to be in the place and will be accepted instead of Perfect Obedience But many are willing to cheat themselves and be deluded with false hopes and mistaken grounds of Comfort and to say Peace Peace where there is no Peace and to deceive themselves with false marks and signs of Grace and without any good reason to believe themselves to have an Interest in Christ and be the Favourites of Heaven There were some in the Apostles time as well as ours who had this Opinion of themselves and made great pretences to the most mysterious knowledge calling themselves Gnosticks and to the most intimate Communion with Heaven and to be Christians of the highest form and order who yet wallowed in all manner of Wickedness and lived in very great Sins and unlawful Liberties expresly forbidden by the Gospel They abused some of the Doctrines of Christianity and perverted the very Design and Constitution of it and by making a false Scheme of it to themselves altered its Nature turning it like our latter Antinomians into a mere Notional Superstition instead of an Institution of Vertue and Holiness and judged of themselves not by its Rules and standing Terms and Conditions but by some ungrounded and imaginary Priviledges that no way belonged to them St. John in his first Epistle layes down several Cautions against such as these and warns the Christians to beware of their loose and pernicious though pretendedly Christian Doctrines such as St. James also speaks very openly against when he corrects their mistakes who would be justified by faith without works i. e. put into a Righteous and Good State by Christianity without Obedience and Vertue Little Children sayes St. John let no man deceive you he that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous 1 John 3.7 He that committeth sin is of the Devil ver 8. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ver 9. In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil ver 10. Where in opposition to all the false Opinions by which those wicked Men believed themselves in a good State notwithstanding their Wickedness or their not being Righteous and made false marks and signs of Grace to themselves and accounted themselves the special Favourites of God and of Christ by some conceited and peculiar Priviledges though they were wicked and impenitent and lived in a state of plain and notorious Sin he layes down a clear and certain a plain and obvious Mark and Criterion by which we may judge of our selves and by which alone we can judge aright of our Spiritual Condition and know whether we are in a Pardoned and Good State and that is this that we do not commit sin or live in the practice of any known and wilful Sin whatsoever till we bring our selves to this we can never by any means whatever by any priviledge of Christianity or by all that Christ has or could do for us be free from a state of guilt and danger till we get rid of every Sin and break off every evil way then we shall recover our good State however dangerous and deplorable it was before and shall be as sure of Gods Favour and a Title to Heaven as if we had been alwayes innocent and never had sinned Many are inclined to judge of themselves by some other and kinder measures and are willing to believe well of themselves and hope they have an Interest in Christ and a Title to Gods Favour and hopes of Heaven without leaving every Sin and living such a strict and holy Life as the Gospel requires they have some Reserves and some false Notions and Principles in Religion whereby they comfort themselves against this severe Doctrine and think by some way or other to reconcile their Sins with the hopes of Heaven and their Eternal Salvation There have been other Schemes of Religion laid down and such Whimsical Hypotheses made of it by some Men from the unwary stating and misunderstanding the Scripture Notions of Election Justification Faith Free-Grace and the like that they at last come to assert these comfortable Doctrines as they call them to a Sinner and so they were if they were true that their Sins can do them no harm nor endanger their Salvation and that Sanctification and Holiness is not necessary as the way or means to Heaven and that a Sinner may come to Christ and be Justified by him and put in a good State before he Repents even with all his Sins and Filth about him which are so far from being Saving and Gospel Truths as they are lewdly and ignorantly called that they are certainly the most damnable Heresies and the most contrary and destructive to Christianity that ever were in the World I am not to enter into any Controversies here nor show the Mistakes too many run into about those matters all those false and abominable Principles will be removed and all false Judgments and wrong Opinions of our selves and our Spiritual State taken away and prevented by this undoubted Mark and Criterion of our
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
good State I have shown more largely before Chap. 1. Sect. 4. 2. The Scripture not only forbids every wilful Sin but excludes it out of Heaven and declares that every wilful Sinner of what kind soever shall not enter into it as neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 10. i. e. whoever are to be denominated such by the practice of their Lives and habit of their Minds by their living and dying in any of those Sins whatsoever or in any one of them This is plainly adjudged by the Gospel which is the Rule God will judge us by at the last day and by that Rule we may judge our selves now and all other judgments of our selves are false and deceitful Whatever Sinner finds himself in the number of that black Catalogue may see his Name as it were in the dead Warrant and nothing but timely Repentance and Amendment before he dyes can blot it out The Sentence of Damnation is as positive and express against all or any such Sinners as the Sentence of Death is against Treason or Felony by the Civil Law and no hopes to escape the Knowledge or Justice of infinite Wisdom and infinite Power and therefore whoever is cast by any one such Inditement and found guilty of any such Capital and Mortal Crime can never escape before the Divine Tribunal the process of which is laid open to us by the Gospel and by that we should judge our selves now as impartially as we know God will hereafter 3. The Reason of this is plain namely of Gods forbidding every wilful Sin upon pain of Damnation and excluding every such Sinner out of Heaven for otherwise he could have forbidden no Sin but must have laid open all his Laws to be broken and trampled on by the disobedience and unruliness of his Creatures for had he suffered every one of Mankind to live in impunity under any one wilful though single Sin such as his particular inclination or his interest would most incline to by this means he would have opened a gap for the breach of all his Laws so that none of them should have been duely observed but all of them broken by parts and by piecemeal by some Sinner or other one would have chosen to have gratified his Revenge another his Lust one would have wallowed in Drunkenness another have persued his Gain by all the methods of Fraud and Unrighteousness and according as Mens inward tempers and outward temptations had been so they would have chosen or indulged every one of them their beloved Sin and so God must have given up all his Authority and his Government to some or other of the vitious inclinations of his Creatures if he had not forbid all Sin whatever upon pain of Damnation and excluded it without exception out of Heaven 4. One such wilful Sin is such an Affront Contempt and Disobedience to the Divine Authority in general as involves in it an Universal guilt and breach of the whole Law of God thus St. James saith He that shall keep the whole law besides and yet offend in one point is guilty of all James 2.10 for this reason for he that said Do not commit adultery said also Do not kill now if thou commit no adultery yet if thou kill thou art become a Transgressor of the law ver 11. i. e. the same Power and Authority of God gives Sanction to all his Laws and 't is a vertual disowning and disclaimer of that wilfully to disobey it and rebel against it and openly oppose it in any case which he does who lives in any one known and wilful Sin and is to be accounted an Enemy and Traytor to Heaven and punisht as such who renounces its absolute Power and Right to Govern him in all things and subverts the whole foundation of Obedience and Submission to it 5. One such wilful Sin or vile Lust if it be suffered to prevail upon the Mind expels all true Principles of Vertue and Religion out of it or shows it to be devoy'd of any such as being utterly inconsistent with them for he that alloweth himself in any sinful liberty or unlawful practice contrary to the plain Rules of Religion can never have a due and just sense of that upon his Mind nor be supposed in any other things to be governed by such considerations of God and Heaven and Religion as are the true principles of all Vertue and Goodness where those are not in the heart all seeming Acts of Vertue and Religion lose their form and worth and excellency and are but the spurious Off-spring of Chance Humour or Interest for he that does any good action or abstains from any bad one out of Regard to Religion and the Considerations of God and another World would for the same reasons act uniformly and not allow himself to live contrary to those in any other instances nor comply with the most darling lust or strongest temptation when contrary to those but if he does so in any case he may as well do it in others for this shows that he is swayed and governed by some other Principles than those of Religion A sense of Honour as 't is call'd or not doing a thing base and scandalous in the opinion of others or a prudent Caution and Discretion in serving our present Interest these may keep many Men from some Vices that would destroy their Credit or their present Advantage but if there be no other foundation for them it is not Vertue and Religion but only Art and Managery which may have its reward here but will never be rewarded in Heaven and this is what some commonly mean by a Moral Man but 't is a mistake for this is only a Man of Conduct and Cunning whereas Morality is founded upon true and certain and Eternal Principles and Reasons of Vertue but he that acts not by those nor any Principles of Religion will be a Knave for his Interest and a Secret Sinner for his Lusts and make his Conscience give way as oft as there is occasion to his Convenience or Inclination for in other sins which the Custom and Opinion of the World have not made so infamous or so disadvantagious there he can be notoriously guilty and break the plain Rules of Vertue and Religion He that can do so by indulging himself in any wilful Sin as he corrupts and spoils all his other seeming Vertues by making them to be base born and not to proceed from a Religious and Vertuous Stock so he throws off all true Principles of Religion and shows that he has no true Root or genuine Seed of it in his heart 6. Such an one lyes open to all other Sins and may for the same reason commit any that he allows himself in one when the mind is thus prostituted and debaucht by consenting to any one particular unlawful Lust it would
So that either a Man must throw off all Religion or throw off every secret and beloved Sin for either his Sin will spoil his Religion or his Religion must cure him of his Sin or he must have great Mistakes and false Apprehensions of Religion who thinks to compound with Heaven and to pay External Homage to it and that God will accept of that instead of inward Vertue and sincere Obedience One would think no Man could ever heartily performe one act of Devotion who has any such sin in reserve that he will not part with but I am sure whoever does so his Devotion will never be accepted by God and it will be in vain to worship him openly while we secretly disobey him such a blemish spoils all our Sacrifices and desecrates and pollutes the most sacred oblations and as the Prophet exprest it to the Jews makes him that killeth an ox as if he slew a man he that sacrificeth a lamb as if he cut off a dogs neck he that offereth an oblation as if he offered swines blood he that burneth incense as if he blessed an idol Isa 6.3 and he giveth the reason at the latter part of the verse They have chosen their own ways and their soul delighteth in their abominations and these turn their very Prayers into sin and make them an abomination to God as Scripture assures us Psal 109.7 Prov. 28.9 'T is strange and unaccountable to consider that a Man should have some sense of Religion and be govern'd by it in a great many things and live up to the Rules of it in several instances and yet be so besotted and infatuated as to let one darling sin overcome and enslave him when he knows that this by the Principles of his Religion is as damnable and destructive as any of the rest which is just as if he should be careful to preserve his Health and avoid a great many Diseases and live by regular Methods to that purpose and yet give himself a mortal stab and a wound that will certainly dispatch him for one Sin like one Wound may be Mortal and bring Death along with it as well as many and one drop of Poyson may kill and one wilful sin damn us as well as more God will not judge of our sins as the Custom and Opinion of the World does nor abate of the Measures of our Duty and Conditions of our Salvation as we madly and unreasonably do our selves but whatever sin stands condemned by the Divine Law however Modish or Common and Customary it be that will not alter its Nature nor take off its guilt and danger one Mans Temper carries him to such Sins that he thinks Flesh and Blood cannot resist anothes Trade or Business tempts him to others that he thinks 't is impossible to get a Livelyhood without them he cannot drive his Bargains with his Customers without immoderate drinking nor Sell and Trade in the World without Customary Lying and perhaps Swearing and to perswade Men out of those that their Convenience and Condition or their Temper or Complexion do so strongly dispose 'em to is to pluck out a right eye and cut off a right hand I confess it is so in our Saviours sense but 't is also very necessary to do this to Cut off even the most pleasant or advantagious Sin and deny even the most darling and beloved Lust if we would not be cast into Hell hereafter and into a Bad State at present our Saviours words there suppose and imply that but as he says 't is more profitable more for our good Interest and Advantage to forego any pleasure and part with any Advantage then for the sake of them to expose our selves to such a miserable state He that is truly afraid of Hell will not dare to live in any such sin as he knows will bring him thither he must be strangely thoughtless and inconsiderate or else a down-right Atheist Infidel or Sceptick who can allow himself in any such sinful Liberties and undue Practices as are directly contrary to Religion and inconsistent with all the fears and the hopes of it and as one would think with all true Faith and belief of another World but let every one that hath those and any serious sense of Religion remaining upon his Mind not venture to indulge himself in any secret or known Sin nor harbour any beloved vice or wickedness in his Soul but let him though with the greatest Self-denyal to his Temper or difficulty to his Circumstances and Condition in the World break it off and teare it from his heart though it stick by never so many strings and fibres and be like a second Nature grown to it like a Cancer it will certainly kill us if it be not thus torn from the breast and so perfectly cut off that none of its spreading Venom or Poyson remain behind He that has had any such mortal illness growing upon his Mind or been guilty of any such wilfull Sin as puts him into an ill state must thus Repent of it so as never again to commit it nor live in the practice of it afterwards or else till he do this he can have no hopes that he is recovered or got out of it nor any reasonable grounds to believe that he is in a Condition any way hopeful or comfortable for Lastly 'T is only this mark of not committing any known and wilful sin that distinguishes good Men who are born of God from those who are wicked and the children of the Devil and Enemies to God and to be sure there must be some very great and notorious difference between them and some plain and evident marks by which they may be known from one another now those are plainly given us by St. John 1 Ep. 3. c. 8 9. ver He that committeth sin is of the Devil and whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin Where nothing less can be meant by committing sin then living in the practice of any known sin or wilful wickedness which destroys the image of God upon the mind and so defiles and depraves our Souls that they are unlike to the pure and holy and unspotted Nature of God and when any Vice of Pride Lust Malice or the like abides upon them they bear these Marks and Signatures and likeness of accursed Fiends and of their Father the Devil upon them in Scripture phrase There are none such great Sinners as to break all the Divine Laws some sins are contrary to one another and some may be contrary to our Inclinations Complexions or Conditions and Employments but he that will violate any one Law as it suits with any of those and will gratifie any Lust or Temptation as it is offered to him he is one whom the Scripture denominates a Sinner in the high sense i. e. one who stands condemned by it to an ill state here and to Eternal Misery hereafter We are all Sinners in a low sense as I shall show presently when I come
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
out the fierceness of his anger upon them and they drink of the cup of his fury and feel his wrath and indignation many a sinner has done this and cryed out in the Anguish of his Soul Thy wrath lyeth hard upon me Psal 88.7 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me thy terrors have cut me off ver 16. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me Psal 55.5 Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore Psal 38.2 Who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath Psal 90.11 For we are consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath are we troubled ver 7. God who is a Spirit as he can convey secret and unspeakable comfort into our Souls so he can impress intolerable and unspeakable horrors upon them and who is able to bear the weight of his Anger or endure the sense of his Wrath and Indignation In his Pleasure and Favour is Life and in his Anger is a double Death to the Soul The inward Sensation and Perception of Gods Love is the ohiefest joy and happyness to a Soul either in this World or the other and the Sense and Perception of his Anger is the greatest Misery God the fountain of all Happiness doth diffuse and communicate such a Peace Joy Comfort to good Souls such an inward Taste and Relish of Spiritual Pleasure and Delight as is unspeakable past understanding called joy in the holy Ghost and is no doubt the sweetest and most affecting pleasure a Soul is capable of this the Angels and blessed Spirits above enjoy and are transported with the most ravishing Sense and Rapturous Impressions of it and 't is what makes Heaven to them and a little foretaste of it when God lifts up the light of his countenance upon us when a pious Soul tasts and sees how good and gracious God is this puts more gladness in the heart than Corn and wine and oyl and all worldly enjoyments now on the contrary when God hides his face and withdraws his loving-kindness and imprints a strong sense of his Wrath and Anger upon the Mind this is the utmost and the deepest Misery this gives the bitterest sense of Evil fills it with the greatest horrors sinks it into the deepest gulph the bottomless Pit of Misery and is the very Punishment and Hell of the damned How happy is it then to be Reconciled to God by Repentance whom we had angred and provoked by our sins before we feel any of this and before his Wrath and Anger is poured out upon us it will certainly fall upon every Sinner some time or other unless he Repents for God though he defers his Anger for some time that his Goodness and long-suffering may lead us to Repentance yet his abused Love Patience and Mercy will turn to greater Wrath and Fury if we persist in our sins and in a course of impenitency As 't is a very terrible thing to have the great God our Enemy and he certainly is so whilst we are in a state of Sin so 't is the comfortablest thought in the World and what will alone make us happy to be Assured that he is our Friend and that we are in a State of Favour with him upon our Repentance THE CONCLVSION To Conclude As all general Christian Duties are meant by Repentance so all general Christian-Priviledges and Benefits belong to it and are the Rewards of it for as Repentance is the same thing in Scripture with Conversion Regeneration the New Birth the New Creature the New Man and the like those different words and figurative expressions denoting only the same duty importing the great Change and Alteration made upon the Mind and Life of a Sinner by the power of Grace and Religion So all the benefits and priviledges of Christianity such as Election Adoption Pardon Justification at present and Glorification afterwards which are free and gratuitous acts in God granting and bestowing those Favours upon us for Christs sake upon our being duely qualified and fitted to receive them These all belong to those who have truly Repented and become good Men and to none else For God hath only Chosen Adopted Pardoned Justified and will Glorifie such and no other and till we have Repented we have no good claim or title to any of those Our being in a good State towards God which is the thing meant by all those Phrases under some different considerations is on our side wholly owing to our true Repentance and Obedience and it is all lost and forfeited by our Impenitency and Disobedience which on the contrary make us the Children of Wrath the Children of the Devil and Heirs of Damnation put us into the worst Spiritual State of Reprobation Obduration and Excecation according to the degrees of our Sins and Impenitence and into that of Condemnation it self which is the word that directly answers to that of Justification All those Scriptural Phrases and Expressions of a good State belong to Repentance and to the true Christian Penitent and all those which signifie a bad one belong as truly to Wickedness and Impenitence for though without the Free-Grace and Mercy of God in and thorough Christ we could not be put into any such good State nor have a title to any such Priviledges meerly by vertue of our Repentance or any thing we could do yet to suppose that God will put us into those states without any regard to our own Actions or not upon the account of them is to destroy all Religion all Divine Government all Future Judgment and all Rewards and Punishments in another World I might clear and illustrate and enlarge upon these had not this Discourse already swelled upon my hands into too great a bulk and did they not run into something of Controversie which I would carefully avoid I shall therefore only give this last Advice to the Penitent who hath brought himself by the Grace of God into this Good and Happy State that when he is thus got out of the Paths of Death and of Sin into those of Life and Vertue that he would go on and proceed in the new and right way he is in and make a speedy and further progress in all Piety and Goodness that like St. Paul forgetting those things which are behind and reaching unto those which are before he may follow and apprehend them and so press forward towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Phil. 3.13 14. that now he is become a Christian in good earnest he would more zealously promote that Religion which he opposed and was an enemy to before and show he is a true Convert by his zeal and earnestness against Vice and Irreligion that he would make all amends he can for his past miscarriages by doing the greatest good he is able by serving God and his Glory more heartily and thus loving much because much is forgiven him so that where sin abounded grace
it can never be imagined that he can have any love or kindness or show any favour to a wicked Man till he has turned away from his Wickedness What is so contrary to himself he can never love if he love himself for he might by the same reason as well hate himself as love that The love of God depends not upon any particular arbitrary inclination or unaccountable humour and fancy as in weak Mortals but it arises from his own Essential Excellencies and Perfections and is grounded upon a true and a lasting Principle his own Nature rather than his Will So that whilst God himself is unchangeably holy he will alwayes love any Soul that is truly holy and comes up to his original Holiness by such measures and proportions as its Nature will admit but whilst the Mind continues wicked it can never by any means in the World be reconciled to God 't is alienated from him 't is opposite to his Nature and 't is therefore the necessary object of his hatred and displeasure or as the Scripture speaks An abomination to him Sin is the only thing that God hates and the only cause why he is angry and displeased with any of his Creatures and as long as this remains there is an everlasting breach and a perpetual ground and foundation of enmity between them and not only Light and Darkness but Heaven and Hell are more irreconcilable than a Righteous God and a Wicked Soul All the Sacrifices that can be offered to atone and expiate for such an one if it continues such were they never so rich or never so many can no more commend it to God or make its peace with him than all the Bribes and Presents of the Indies could pervert a Just and Righteous Judge or blind the eyes of Justice and Integrity it self There can never be any other terms of Reconciliation between a Wicked Soul and a Righteous God but only this that it become Righteous and till it do so it can never become the object of Gods Love and Favour unless he change his own Righteous Nature and cease to be Righteous and Holy himself 3. Without this we can never be freed from the Natural and Necessary Evils of Sin upon our Minds whereby it will make us inwardly miserable till we are cured of them for though we should suppose all the Political Evils as I may call them of Sin taken away and removed i. e. all that outward Mischief and Punishment which is to be inflicted upon it from the Arbitrary Will and Threatning of the sovereign Lawgiver though he should out of tenderness and compassion or for the sake of a Sacrifice or other Consideration abate of that and not execute the utmost Penalties and those positive Severities that he had denounced against it yet so many are the Natural Evils that are annex'd to it that it would of it self make the Mind necessarily and inwardly miserable This does not depend upon the Will of God as a Governour only but as a Creator as he hath setled and ordered the nature of things and made it impossible they should ever be otherwise Misery is so entailed to Sin by the fundamental constitution of things that 't is impossible ever to cut it off It is as inseparable from and as closely connected to it as effects are to their causes and we may as well divorce Light from the Sun or Heat from Fire as Misery from Wickedness It springs out of it Naturally as a foul stream from such a corrupt fountain growes upon it as the proper and bitter fruit from such a poysonous root and Sin as a true Parent has the seeds of all Evil in its own bowels A Mind that is over-run with Vice will as necessarily be corrupted and weakened and vitiated as the Body is decayed and impaired by a Disease The one will as necessarily put the Mind out of order as Sickness does the other and till it be cured and made sound it will alwayes be in pain and uneasie Its Faculties will necessarily be weakened and impaired and disordered by it and so lose their true and proper happiness and it will be put into an unnatural frame and temper and be like the Body when its Limbs are out of joynt in great torture till it be set right again God must alter his own Nature and the Nature of things too or else Vice and Wickedness whilst 't is continued in will make the Mind miserable sickly and uneasie and fill it with restlesness and disquietude and make it a torment and vexation to it self 4. Without Repentance and being freed from our Sins we can never be capable of partaking or enjoying any true and positive Happiness much less that great and eternal one in Heave Happiness must be something within our selves like Health it consists in the right crasis and constitution of the Mind in the strength and vigour and regular operation of all its Faculties Till it be put into this state by Repentance and Vertue 't is uncapable of enjoying any true Happiness Our Vices must therefore be first cured and purged out or else our Souls will be as uncapable of enjoying their proper spiritual and rational pleasures with their Sins and wicked Habits and Dispositions upon them as our Bodies of enjoying their animal and sensual ones witha Lethargy or Apoplexy or whatever destroys their proper strength sense and perception Without Holy Minds and Vertuous Dispositions and Heavenly Affections and Inclinations as we can no way hope for Heaven so we are no way fitted or qualified for it and therefore our Minds must necessarily be disposed and prepared for that by Repentance and previous habits of Vertue and such a divine temper and holiness of Mind as can alone make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light as St. Paul speaks Coloss 1.12 without which we should no more enjoy Heaven than a blind Man enjoyes the light of the Sun whose Organs are spoil'd and vitiated and who wants the use of those Senses and Faculties by which he should perceive it So that if a Sinner should be sent to Heaven with all his unrepented Sins unmortified Lusts and vitious Inclinations and without that love of God and Goodness which is to fit him for it he would be not only like him which came to the Marriage-feast without a Wedding-garment who must be turned out of that company he was so unfit for but like one that had the greatest dainties set before him but that was sick and had no stomach and so could not taste or relish any of them Till the Mind is brought to love God and delight in him and in all the actions of Vertue and exercises of Religion it canot be happy in Heaven but that would rather be unagreeable and an aversion to it than an Happiness Till a Sinner therefore be brought off from his Sins by Repentance and restored to a vertuous and holy and good Mind he cannot enjoy Heaven
or Happiness nor be freed from Sin and Misery nor can a Holy and Wise God be reconciled to him or forgive him Upon all these accounts we see his Repentance is absolutely necessary to entitle him to Pardon and Salvation and without this he must certainly and unavoidably perish Now 8. This absolute necessity of it is a strong and powerful Argument to perswade us to it Whilst Men have any hopes of escaping with their Sins this with the pleasures and temptations of them will encourage them to persist in them and to enjoy their Lusts and their Liberties which they have made very hard and uneasie to deny themselves but when they find they must either do this or else necessarily perish for ever this if any thing will prevail upon Men who believe and consider the dreadful horrour of Everlasting Damnation Now the absolute necessity of Repentance is as plain by the Gospel as the power and validity of it We are as much assured that without it we shall be damned as we shall be saved with it Now this above all commends a Medicine to us that it will cure us if we use it but that we shall dye if we do not however bitter and unpalatable it may be however it may disorder us while it is working upon us and however painful the operation may be yet if we must lose our Lives without it this will make us choose and endure it and go through with it Though we must cut off a Right-hand yet if the Gangrene will kill us if we do not we shall submit to it Though it be very painful to part with our Lusts and our beloved Sins yet since we must be damned if we do not this will bring us to it If a Man must sink unless he throwes away his richest lading and discharges himself of his weighty treasure he will lose that rather than his Life and if he be not mad he will for the same reason cast away his Sins rather than his Soul No Man disputes this when he is brought into such a necessity such a strait and exigency as to be thus tryed Now Christ has by the Gospel put this necessity upon us either Repent and leave your Sins or perish with them There is no avoiding this no possibility to prevent it any way and therefore when there is but one thing to be done and such a necessity for doing it one would think it should do it self but this is a necessity of Reason of Choice of Thought of Deliberation that requires our Minds to think of it and consider it or else it will not work upon us and therefore we can throw off the force and power of it by not thinking or not considering of it but if we did as we ought duly consider of it it would have an irresistible force and power upon us and no Man could hinder the effect of it but he that will shut his eyes and not see a precipice may fall down it and the greatest necessity of avoiding any danger is took off by not heeding or not being sensible of it though it be never the less great in it self for all that and the necessity would work upon any but those who are heedless and inconsiderate Sad is the state and condition of those under the Gospel who live in a state of Sin and Impenitence or in the habit of any unrepented Sin they are under as absolute a sentence of condemnation as if the great Judge had pronounced it upon them and bid them Go ye cursed Whilst they continue such there is no more hopes of Mercy for them than for the damned themselves Their state indeed is not as unalterable as the others is and this is the only difference for they are otherwise as much Children of Wrath as they They are not bound in chains of darkness nor confined to this state by an irreversible Judgment but they are fettered to their Sins and to their state by their own choice and till they break those bonds and get free from them they can never come out of that sad condition which should make every impenitent Sinner tremble and seriously bethink himself what a sad state and condition he is in what a doom hangs over his head and how near his steps take hold of Death how he walks upon the brink of Hell and Damnation and the least fatal accident or sudden death does irrecoverably throw him in without Redemption which should make his Heart tremble and his Blood chill and his Hair stand an end if he considered it as he ought Let him therefore resolve to snatch himself out of the fire and speedily recover himself from the jaws of Death Repentance alone can do this and this he should set about immediately and be perswaded to it by those powerful Motives and Arguments which the Gospel and Christianity proposes and which I have from thence offered to him I shall subjoyn to these another Motive or Exhortation to Repentance which I cannot call so properly Evangelical and peculiar to the Gospel but what arises from both Nature and Reason and some Gospel Considerations mixt together and complicated with those and that is the Consideration of Death and our being made ready and prepared for it by Repentance and therefore that nothing else can free us from the fears and terrors of it SECT VI. Exhortation to Repentance as a Preparation for Death or in order to make us ready to dye THE last Motive then I shall propose to Repentance is this that nothing else can prepare and make us ready and fit to dye and therefore nothing else can take off the fear and terror of Death to which in all reason we must otherwise be exposed and so all our life time subject to bondage as the Scripture speaks Dye we know we must in a little while and there is none so foolishly Sceptical as to deny or disbelieve this and to hope to escape the Grave where he has seen all his Fore-fathers laid before him and which is the common lot or fate of every Mortal There is nothing therefore more concerns us while we live than to be alwayes ready and prepared to dye this should be our great work and business if we considered the true end of living or understood the mighty consequence of dying as Religion represents them both to us and he that is not so foolish as to think he shall never dye should above all things take care so to live that he may be alwayes ready to dye and of the two 't is a greater folly to think we shall dye and not prepare for it than to think we shall not dye at all This it is then which a wise Man is concerned to do all his Life to be ready and prepared for Death which he knows will certainly come and because it is uncertain when it will come therefore to be alwayes ready and alwayes provided for it There is so much danger and hazard not to do this
again unto repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And again Heb. 10.26 For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin The Sin that is meant in both these places is most probably the Apostatizing from and renouncing of Christianity which the Christians were then in great danger of in those times of Danger and Persecution and therefore the Apostles had all reason to represent it as the most hazardous and guilty and to let them know that after they had once fallen from their Baptism they could not be renewed by another Baptism and after they had rejected the Sacrifice of Christ there was no other Sacrifice to be expected to be offered for their Sins nor was Christ to dye more than once This was indeed a very horrid Sin and to those especially who had probably had extraordinary Gifts communicated to them as the Phrases there used seem to denote These might well be charged with those tremendous expressions ver 29. That they had trodden under foot the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing and done despite unto the Spirit of Grace But yet the Primitive Church how severe soever it was at first to the Lapsi in denying them Communion after they had Apostatized yet it was the same also to many other Sins to whom it utterly denyed the Communion of the Church for ever as well as to Apostacy though the Persons were never so penitent who committed them And whilst they kept to this most severe Discipline which they were forced afterwards to abate yet they did not peremptorily sentence those penitent Apostates nor any others to certain Perdition but left them to the Mercy of God for which they would not engage to be Sponsors or Sureties as not being able to ascertain them of it and this is the most I think of what St. John sayes of the sin unto death I do not say that we shall pray for it 1 John 5.16 i. e. we cannot have such an assurance that God will hear the Prayers for that as for other Sins and therefore we cannot so confidently encourage Men to pray for it tho' he does not at all forbid them to do it This Sin unto death was very likely also to be Apostacy from Christianity to the Idolatry of the Gnosticks or the Gentiles and that was certainly a very deadly Sin and such as was not to have the benefit of the Prayers of the Church but to say that this would never be Pardoned after St. Peters denyal of his Master was and after the Church did frequently admit the Lapsi at least to Lay-Communion I think we ought to have a more plain and manifest Revelation of the Will of God in that matter than we have from that difficult place However from these three places which come the nearest to this Sin though there is no mention of it in any of them it appears that either other Sins as well as that particular one of the Pharisees may be represented unpardonable or else that those expressions which are used to set out the guilt of those Sins are yet to be mollified and abated But Lastly The Evangelical Covenant of Pardon and Forgiveness being exprest in such general and large terms as extend universally to all manner of Sins without any exception whatsoever and there being no one Sin whatever exempted out of that in the Charter it self or in the Form of Absolution prescribed by Christ Matth. 16.29 John 20.23 they think it is more agreeable to say that no one particular Sin how great soever is unpardonable by the Gospel and that this will be a greater force and violence to those many Promises of the Gospel than to mitigate the severity of those expressions which seem to speak otherwise of some Sins and particularly of that against the Holy Ghost And therefore to come to a resolution in this matter that may be safe and satisfying I shall do it very briefly in two particulars 1. I say That either for those Reasons the Expression here may be mollified and not taken in its literal and rigorous sense but so as to import the great guilt of the Sin and difficulty of its Pardon but not the utter impossibility Or else 2. That there were some particular circumstances in that Sin of the Pharisees which make it a Sin proper to them in those times and such as Christians are not now in any possible danger of committing for though we have sufficient Reasons to believe the truth of Christianity upon the account of the Miracles done by our Saviour and we have an unquestioned assurance of the truth of those from undoubted History and universal Testimony and Tradition yet we cannot have that ocular evidence and visible demonstration of them that the Jews and Pharisees had and therefore if any of the Jews in our dayes who have swallowed many of them this blasphemous account of Christ and his Miracles that he did them all by the Power of Magick which he learned in Egypt if they do now vent this horrid Calumny yet I think they are not so perfectly Criminal nor is this so high a degree of villany in them as it was in their Fore-fathers who saw the very Miracles done before their faces which is the highest evidence that can be And unless the Person be in all those circumstances that they were which would make him a great deal more inexcusable I question whether he can be charged with this Sin And therefore as a Conclusion from the whole and as the most useful remark from this Subject I shall advise these two things 1. That no Sinner be discouraged from Leaving his Sins howsoever great nor from Hopes of the Divine Mercy upon any ungrounded Fears that he is fallen into this Sin and so is in a hopeless irrecoverable unpardonable state By what has been said it appears that no one now has reason to do this and it is certainly the greatest design of the Gospel and our Saviours coming into the World to perswade Mankind that were sunk into the saddest Sins and Wickedness to Repent and Forsake all their Evil wayes And there is no such means to encourage to this as to assure them of the Divine Mercy and the certain Forgiveness of all of them if they do 'T is this is the way to bring Men in to their Duty and Allegiance when their Governour proclaims an universal Act of Grace for what is past whereas the being cut off from all such hopes makes them go on and grow more desperate and 't is by this Goodness and Mercy of God held forth to all Sinners and so fully displayed in the Gospel and the Death of Christ that we are led to Repentance and therefore it ought by no means to be lessened or diminished unless we would make God less Good than he
Religion if we are so fond of them that we will break through those to obtain them and prefer the short gratifications of Sin and Flesh for a season before the better Pleasures of Vertue and Innocence and the Glorious Rewards of them for ever then our choice is foolish and unreasonable and our destruction wilful and unavoidable The Spirit proposes to us the dictates of Wisdom and Reason and shows us both the folly and undecency of being thus governed by our lower Appetites and being led away by those like Brutes that have no understanding and not living up to the dignity of our Nature and letting our Reason curb and controll those sensual inclinations And it further layes before us the great obligations of Religion and the strong and powerful considerations of another World and by all these it prevails upon all that seriously think and consider let their Carnal Inclinations be never so strong and the Lustings of their Flesh never so fierce and violent tho' their first Motions cannot be quite hindered and supprest and the fire of Concupiscence cannot be quite extinguish'd and put out yet it may be kept under and hindered from ever blazing out from ever gaining any consent of the Will to what is unlawful and from ever committing it by outward deed or action and while it does so it is safe though it be still tryed though it be in a state of perpetual warfare and the Flesh be such an intestine enemy as cannot be wholly destroyed but like the Canaanites its Lusts may be still a thorn in our side to vex us Num. 33. and to buffet us 2 Cor. 12.7 yet we may still master and conquer it and keep it under and make it subject as a Vassal to the Laws of Reason and Religion It would be moe easie and more happy if we brought it into a condition that it could never stir or rebel or rise up against the Spirit but it may be as great Vertue and greater Victory and more highly rewardable to struggle and overcome and like Socrates though by Nature and Constitution we are never so perverse and ill disposed yet to become otherwise by thought and Philosophy and to owe our Vertue though not to our temper yet to our care and circumspection to the power of Grace and Religion That will change our Hearts and our Tempers and renew us inwardly in our Minds and instead of stony Hearts give us Hearts of Flesh Ezek. 36.26 and instead of Fleshly and Earthly Desires give us Spiritual and Heavenly ones and whatever we are by Nature make us meek and gentle sober and temperate pure and chast and entirely Vertuous by Principle Habit and Resolution 'T is very happy when a Natural Temper disposes us to acquire those Christian Vertues when the Soil is kindly and fitted for them to take root and grow up in it but we must prepare and cultivate it and weed out those corruptions that are in it till we plant it with all those Graces and it bring forth those Fruits of the Divine and Spiritual Life though we are at never so much care and pains about them How we may bring the Spirit to prevail alwayes over the Flesh and to conquer the Lustings of it and by what means we may lessen the Power of one and increase that of the other I am in the Third place to consider 1. These Lustings of the Flesh so far as Natural are not Sinful but but may be consistent with the contrary Principle of the Spirit when kept within due bounds and governed by the Laws of Vertue and Religion We cannot be without such Passions Appetites and Inclinations whilst we have Body and Flesh about us and these are part of Gods Creation and not made in vain but put in us for good ends so far as they were designed by God and Nature They were not given us to torment and vex us with unsatisfied Desires and impatient Appetites like Tantalus his Punishment to have the daintiest Fruit before him and be set up to the Chin in a cool River and yet not taste the one nor quench his thirst with a drop of the other No Religion does not tye us up from any proper Natural Enjoyments with a touch not taste not handle not but allowes us the satisfying and gratifying our Natural Appetites and Desires within the bounds of Vertue Decency and Lawfulness It lets us eat of all the Trees and Fruits and Dainties of this Earthly Paradise only it keeps us from the forbidden Fruit and suffers us not to gratifie our Desires brutishly and unreasonably and without regard to publick and private good which is more to be regarded than any Mans particular humour or pleasure God therefore as we are Rational Creatures who are to promote the universal Happiness of the whole World has given us such Laws as conduce to that end and we are alwayes to observe them and not transgress the limits and prescriptions by which he has bounded our Sensual Desires and Inclinations and without destroying them has made them useful and serviceable to the wise ends of his Providence So that we are not bound with the Stoicks to root up those nor with the Asceticks to deny our selves such gratifications as are Innocent and Decent Lawful and Useful But 2. We are to destroy the Excesses and Irregularities of them which are vicious mischievous and unbecoming and this Religion means when it bids us mortifie our earthly members and crucifie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts and pluck out a right eye and cut off a right hand when they offend us or draw us to Sin not that we are to destroy hereby any part of our Nature or any of the Passions and Inclinations resulting from it but so far as they are unnatural and immoderate inflamed and heightened by folly and fancy and exceed the measures both of Nature and Reason Vertue and Religion and exceed the bounds both of Humane and Divine Laws so far we are to destroy kill and mortifie them for they become then mischievous and pernicious to the World and bring shameful and miserable effects along with them and are a reproach and a dishonour to our Reason and our Nature as being contrary to and below both The frame and make of our Bodies require to be sustained with Meat and Drink and the Natural Appetites of Hunger and Thirst are to be gratified with what is acceptable to the Taste and Palate but when this runs into Luxury Gluttony and Drunkenness when Vanity Brutishness and Debauchery mixes it self with our Meat and Drink then these Natural Appetites are vicious and immoderate forced beyond Nature by Folly Fancy and Custom and our Table becomes a Snare and a Sin to us We cannot but desire the good things the conveniences the plenty the riches of this World for we see the usefulness and the necessity of them to our present Life but to desire them so immoderately as not to be content with a moderate