like but hate Without this our Tears run wast and our Sorrow is but as an empty Cloud or Rain upon barren Ground without any Fruit and all our bitter Cryes and Lamentations are but as the mournings of the Ephesian Matron when we can strike up again immediately with our Sins and take the causes of our Sorrow and the murderers of our beloved Joy immediately into our Hearts and our Embraces 3. Humiliations Bodily Austerities and Mortifications and especially Fasting make up this Duty of Penitence or Exercise of Repentance For thus the Penitents of old put on Sackcloth and spread Ashes upon their Heads lay prostrate upon the ground and rent their Clothes in the Eastern Countries and fasted and denyed themselves their ordinary Food and afflicted their Souls with these severities upon their Bodies For Sin being committed chiefly by the Body as not only the Instrument but the Tempter to it and the Flesh and its Carnal gratifications being the strongest and commonest allurements to it therefore to show their anger and displeasure against it they revenged it upon their Bodies and chastized those servants of unrighteousness and used such a discipline upon them as might punish them for what was past and be a means to prevent their sinning for the future And to show the sense they had of their own vileness and unworthiness for having offended God they exprest and testified it by all acts of humiliation and lowly submission to his Power and Greatness which they had formerly opposed withstood and disobeyed Now these Acts or Exercises of Repentance were so acceptable to God when they were the signs and effects of a true penitent Heart that we find in Scripture how it prevailed with God so far to pardon Sin as to remove the Temporal Judgments he had denounced against it Thus Niniveh was saved from destruction Jonah 3. when they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth and decreed that neither man nor beast should taste any thing but be covered with sackcloth and ashes ver 7.8 And Josiah when he thus humbled himself and rent his Clothes upon his hearing the destruction of Jerusalem denounced by the Prophetess had it defer'd till after his Death 2 Kings 22.19 And even wicked Ahab had Gods Judgment respited and took off from himself because when he heard it He rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted 1 Kin. 21.27 God himself assigning this as a Reason to the Prophet Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days ver 29. And we find these Acts of Humiliation and this Discipline of Fasting joyned with Repentance not only in the Jewish Church but also in the Christian in the first and best Ages when this Penitential Discipline was most strictly observed by all Penitents Now the Question is 1. Whether these are necessary as proper acts or parts of Repentance or whether internal Repentance without these outward Exercises of it may not be sufficient 2. Whether if they be not necessary they are not useful and proper to promote or at least to express it Now as to the first Question The necessity of these we must make a difference between publick and private Repentance In publick Repentance as that of a Nation or City when they would remove or avert a Judgment and deprecate Gods Anger due to their Sins and exercise a solemn and publick Repentance for them this ought to be done by outward Humiliations and Fastings and such signs and expressions as are proper and usual to testifie great concern and trouble and mourning and humiliation that so they may make the best acknowledgment and satisfaction to God for their Sins and the best reparation to his injured Honour and Authority and may beget in others and propagate over the whole Kingdom or Nation the same penitential sense and concern for their Sins in order to avoid the danger and the judgment due upon them And thus in the publick Exercises of Penitence in the Christian Church when any had by a notorious and scandalous Sin brought a reproach and infamy upon the Church and their Religion the Governours were concerned for its Honour and Credit to take notice and turn them out of their Communion and put them in a state of publick Penitence for their grievous faults And here it was necessary for such Persons to satisfie the Church by their outward Acts of Repentance Mourning and humiliation that they were truly and inwardly penitent and were likely to live better and become other Men before they received them again into their Communion and this though it was but a Prudential Method and an External Discipline of the Church yet was excellently fitted for the reclaiming and reforming great and open Offenders by thus shaming them out of their sins and keeping the Rod over them and shutting them out of the Church by the power of the Keys till they were fit to be admitted and received in again upon the probable signs of a True Repentance and this our Church has good reason to wish for again and ought to restore it did not the state and circumstances we are in unavoidably hinder it but it is utterly impracticable under great Schisms and Divisions from the Church and great Looseness and Contempt of Religion which make it impossible for the Church to exercise this Discipline which were otherwise its Duty but this is at most but an Useful Discipline not a necessary or Essential part of Repentance to go through those penitential courses of Humiliation and Mortification which the ancient Penitents did all that is strictly necessary and all that the Scripture commands as a duty is an Internal Penitence towards God transacted between him and our own Souls wherein we humble our selves before him under a sense of our own vileness and unworthiness and with the greatest submission of our Souls bow down our selves and own his Power and Right to punish us and beseech him for Christ's sake not to use it i. e. to pardon and forgive us Now this I doubt not with sincerity of mind at present and Amendment of Life afterwards is a sufficient Exercise of this Duty to private and particular persons without all the other Solemnities and performaces of a publick Penitence for the design of those is hereby fully attained as to the Person himself which was to amend him and to recover him and to make him more careful not to offend for the future by his shame and sufferings for what is past The Church of Rome has turned this Discipline of Publick Penitence used in the Primitive Church into Auricular Confession and Private Penance which besides the folly of giving Absolution first and supposing some of the guilt and punishment remaining after the Sin is pardoned and making the Eternal Punishment easier to be got off than than the Temporal and imposing trifling and ridiculous penances and making them properly satisfactory is a shameful
yet they were looked upon ever after as Saints in the Scripture phrase and account and were supposed to have repented and renounced all their Sins before they were admitted into Christianity and that as a previous and antecedent Condition necessary to qualifie and prepare them for it and therefore there was usually some time of tryal and probation appointed by the Primitive Church to see whether those Candidates of Baptism were sincere or no in their Promises and Pretences and if afterwards they broke and violated those and committed any great and notorious Sin which they had renounced in their Baptism and was contrary to their Baptismal Covenant they turned them out of the Church for it and excluded them from the Benefits and Priviledges of Christianity so that they accounted not those for true Christians who were Penitents and who stood in need of Repentance for any great Sin And indeed he is not a Christian who does so he is fallen off from Christianity and has quitted and renounced his Baptismal Vow and has forfeited the rights of it and has put himself out of the Christian state and the state of Grace who is guilty of any Mortal Sin and who is in a state of Repentance for it Penitence was therefore alwayes accounted by those first Christians a very terrible and dreadful thing if we read of the cryes and tears and discipline and behaviour of the antient Penitents though the loosness and irreligion of latter times has made it to be thought a slight and easie and trivial matter but it is plain from Scripture that it was supposed as previous and antecedent to Christianity and from the Primitive Church that it cut Men off and excluded them out of it and that so far in the opinion of some as never to be again admitted into it The Antient Church at first accounted him so far from being a Christian who was in the sad and wretched state of Penitence for any great and Mortal Sin that it thought he deserved never again to be received into the Church nor admitted into Christian Communion no not in articulo mortis It was so horrid a reflection in its esteem upon Christianity such a disgrace to the Gospel of Christ and so unworthy the Christian Profession to have a Christian guilty of any such great Sin as Murder Adultery or the like that it would never own him again that was so nor receive him as a Christian But 6. Though Christianity be a permanent state of Pardon and Remission so that this is by no means to be denyed to Sins after Baptism according to the Novatian Heresie which sprang out of that first severe Discipline of the Church and which it was afterwards forced to condemn yet 't is a thing strange and unknown and unagreeable to Christianity that Men should go on in a course of renewing their Sins and so renewing their Repentance for them as often as they think fit This would be making Christianity run in the Popish Circle of Sin and Repent Repent and Sin and so dance round without any danger provided we stop at the last at the right point I am far from that severe Principle charged upon Novatus of old and Smalcius of late which allowes not Repentance to any great and voluntary Sins committed after Baptism though that were given only to the Adult and to those of full Reason and Understanding this would be the most uncomfortable thing in the World to the best Christians few of which could set up to themselves this narrow Ladder and so go alone to Heaven by it as Constantine said to one of the Patrons of this Doctrine And I think the instance of the Incestuous Corinthian and the unworthy Communicants at Corinth and many other places in the New Testament clearly confute it and it makes the Christian Covenant so much worse than the Jewish which had standing means of Expiation and Remission that it needs no more to confute it And though Baptism be not to be repeated yet the benefit of it reaches forwards as well as to what is past as Christs Death also does and we are partakers of Christs Blood for the remission of Sins in the other Sacrament as well as this without any necessity of the pretended Sacrament of Penance for this purpose as the Papists argue But though the Gospel has given us a standing Charter of Pardon upon Repentance which is not forfeited by every new breach and violation yet if we do not accept of it and perform the Condition after it has been offered and tendered to us we may justly be debarred and excluded from it and God may when he pleases without any breach of Promise or of Covenant cut us off from it for he may take away our Lives when he will and so shorten and limit the time when this Priviledge shall expire and determine and when we shall no further have any benefit of it Like a Prince who sets out a Proclamation of Pardon and Indempnity to all Rebels that shall immediately come in and return to their Allegiance if they delay and refuse to do this they forfeit all their right to it and may be siezed and executed when ever he thinks fit Should a Government grant a General Pardon to all Offenders when ever they shall please to come in and claim it it would destroy it self and encourage all manner of Villany and Wickedness And if God should grant this to all Sinners when they had stood out in rebellion against him all their Lives that at the last moment of them they should have the full and entire benefit of it he would unavoidably encourage them in their Sins and relax and abate all the Obligation to his Laws and unloose Men from the necessity of a good Life which was very far to be sure from the design of God in granting this Priviledge of Repentance But 't is an horrid abuse of it and a turning this Grace of God into wantonness and putting a trick upon God and Religion by thus perverting it and drawing such mischievous consequences from it I hope I have taken away the very Grounds of that fatal Mistake and the common and false Reasonings that many make to themselves from it or at least shall do so before I have done and particularly by the next Chapter CHAP. V. Of a Death-Bed Repentance SECT I. The Case of the Thief upon the Cross Examined THE Relation and Account of the Thief upon the Cross and our Saviours Discourse with him tho' it be put in and lye in the Gospel only as a meer History and a matter of fact that belonged to the manner of our Saviours dying his being crucified between Two Thieves so that it was not intended or designed by any of the Evangelists to teach any Evangelical Doctrine or to give any peculiar Rule Principle or Instruction that was extraordinary and that was to be learnt and collected confirmed and authorized only by that and therefore though 't is mentioned
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
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
competency and sufficiency with food and rayment as the Apostle has fix'd a competency 1 Tim. 6.8 with what answers the wants of Nature and the circumstances of our Condition but to be alwayes craving after more without any use or occasion this is that immoderate desire of Riches which we call Covetousness and so in other things 't is the Excess the Irregularity the immoderate and the vicious Abuse not the Natural Passion and Inclination it self that is to be denyed restrained and mortified 3. To do this we must so check and restrain and deny even our Natural Appetites that we may have the power and government alwayes over them Now if we let them loose and lay the reins upon their neck and let them take their utmost liberties and go alwayes to the furthest bounds of what is lawful they will hardly be kept in as they ought to be but we shall walk upon the brink of danger and the side of a precipice where it will be hard to escape falling sometimes and our Sensual Inclinations will grow more heady strong and ungovernable by being alwayes indulged and not used to a more severe discipline and management which all wise Men have therefore prescribed by the Rules and Precepts of Mortification and Self-denyal 4. To abate these Lustings and Desires of the Flesh and increase and raise those of the Spirit let us consider how little and mean are the objects and gratifications of the one in respect of those of the other How the one are low sordid and Brutish the other Rational and Angelical such as the highest order of Beings next to God are capable of How little is there in all the Riches and Greatness and State of this World how much less in all the mad frollicks of Debauchery and all the beastliness and filthiness of Brutish Lusts in all those things that make up Carnal Enjoyments and are the summe as the Apostle reckons them up of all that is in the World The lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life 1 John 2.16 How much greater and nobler is it to have a wise and sober and vertuous Mind easie Thoughts and a chearful Conscience Spiritual Desires and Affections set upon things above and strong and well-grounded hopes of an Eternal Life and a Glorious Immortality These are the Objects of our Spiritual Desires and we should increase those by representing the worth and value the greatness and excellency of these above any other things that we can choose or desire or any enjoyments of the Animal and Sensual Life 'T is a vain fancy and opinion of the latter whereby we raise our imagination and heighten our expectation of something great and extraordinary in them 't is that kindles our Affections and inflames our Desires after them but did we wisely consider how vain and trifling and inconsiderable they are and how poor and little and short and sorry gratifications they afford this would wean us from such weak fancies and opinions of them and so slack and cool our Desires and Lustings after them Lastly We must use all Religious Means and Methods to mortifie and abate the Lustings of the Flesh and strengthen and increase those of the Spirit by the Acts and Exercises of Religion Piety and Devotion 'T is in the growth and prevalence of the latter lyes our Moral State and the greatest exercise of all Vertue and in the right ordering and governing of our Passions Appetites and Inclinations so that we must use all possible Methods to keep the lower Appetites under and obedient to the superiour and not let them dethrone our Reason or disobey Religion and therefore we must use all the helps we can have from Religion and Philosophy and the Divine Grace and Assistance to tame our inordinate Lusts by Fasting by Watching by Prayer by due watchfulness and circumspection over our selves and over all the weak places of our Nature that Sin do not enter in at some of those inlets that are unguarded and do not surprize and easily beset us when we are unprepared and unarmed by Religion against the assaults of it and there is nothing so helpful to this and to increase and strengthen our Spiritual Desires so that they shall alwayes prevail over the Lusts of the Flesh as the constant and uninterrupted exercises of Piety and Devotion These give life and vigour and nourishment to our Spiritual Desires and keep them alwayes warm and heated and intent upon their proper Objects whereas a neglect of those begets a carelesness stupidity and senslesness of all those things and sinks Men into a meer Sensual and Animal and Worldly and Brutal Life Nothing is therefore so proper to bring us to these Spiritual Desires and to make those alwayes prevail over the Lusts of the Flesh as Devotion and Piety which raise the Mind to things above the Body and above this World and take off and abstract the Soul from Sensual and Carnal Enjoyments and make it live up as near as it can to that Life it shall have in Heaven when it shall be all Spirit and have no Flesh or Lusts to contend with or be contrary to it I shall in the next place consider another thing which befalls many a Sinner and which tho' a due effect of his Sins and an evidence of the sad state they bring him to and so may be of great use to be duly considered on this account yet is a kind of Excess of Repentance and sometimes too great an extream that way and what ought to have the nicest Resolutions and best Directions given about it to cure and remove it I mean Trouble of Mind or a Wounded Conscience which many a Sinner lyes under and which I shall briefly Represent and Discourse of by considering how great a Misery it is above all others in this World and what Cure and Remedy there may be for it or for those who are fallen under it SECT IV. Of Trouble of Mind or a Wounded Spirit THE greatest part of our Happiness or Misery lyes in our Minds and Spirits in those inward Faculties and Sensories which are distinct from our Body and outward Senses We feel very often more pleasure or pain in those distinct from the Body than the Body it self is capable of for these are quicker and more sensible than Matter and Body can be and are the proper subject of perception of any Pleasure and Pain and of all Rational Happiness or Misery A Mans inward Thoughts do often give him more torment and uneasiness anguish and disquietude of Soul and more real pain and misery than any Bodily torment or even Death it self and therefore some have chosen Death and have willingly endured any Bodily pain rather than lye under the greater pain agonies and horrours of their own Minds and many that have been under those yet have felt an inward ward joy comfort and satisfaction of Mind that has supported them under the worst pains and sufferings of
offer 4. Then Such a Repentance as the Gospel makes the condition of Pardon and Salvation is nothing less than a constant Obedience and an entire and universal Goodness of Life at least after a wicked one or after great failures and miscarriages for Repentance as I have often said is to the Soul like a recovery of Health to the Body after some great Sickness or Illness The whole Body or the part ill affected must be made perfectly well and restored to its former strength and soundness or else it cannot be said to be recovered The Disease must be throughly got off the sickly matter must be discharged the illness must be cured and removed and the Patient must get his former strength and be able to perform the proper and vital operations or else we cannot say he is well So a Sinner must wholly get rid of his past Sins must purge them all out by Sorrow and Contrition must have his Mind wholly freed from them and himself brought to such a Spiritual strength and soundness as to perform the Duties and Operations of the new Life or else he is not recovered by Repentance nor brought from a bad state to a good one He may be under a method of Cure indeed as a sick Man is under a course of Physick whilst he is under Sorrow for Sin and Contrition and Compunction and the like which are good means and instruments and beginnings of Repentance and so are mistaken for the thing it self but his Repentance is not finish'd nor is the great work perfect and compleat till from a bad Man in any kind he is become a good one till this is done which God knows is not the most easie nor the most speedy thing in the World but requires long time and great care and pains and labour there is no title that I know of to Pardon by the Terms of the Gospel nor is there any true Gospel Repentance such as we can give any warrant or assurance of remission to by the Covenant of Grace or the known and ordinary Rules of Gods Mercy Were Repentance only a sudden Passion or a transient Act of the Mind were it only an inward Sorrow Trouble and Compunction of Heart it might be quickly performed and no Sinner would be without it but Cain and Herod and Judas might be said to Repent thus far and after this fashion for thus the one repented and said I have sinned Mat. 27.3 4. the second was exceeding sorry for what he had done Matth. 6.26 and the other was so sensible of his Sin that he cryed out My punishment is greater than I can bear Gen. 4.13 But true Repentance is only known and made to be so by an habitual and lasting change both of Mind and Life by an actual amendment and reformation by a turning away from all our evil deeds and all our wickedness whatsoever that we have committed and doing that which is lawful and right which is the clearest and fullest Scripture expression that gives us the true Nature of Repentance which includes constant and actual Obedience and destroyes these foolish and wicked reserves of securing our selves by playing an after-game of Repentance They who design this have no sense of the true worth and excellency of Religion but are only for making use of it for a little turn at the last as Goal-birds learn to read meerly for the sake of their Neck-verse for though they like their Sins much better and would alwayes live in them it is plain if they were left to their choice yet they at last unwillingly bring themselves to part with them as Men throw over their Goods in a Storm for fear they should be lost and Shipwreck'd with them Thus miserably do they mistake and misunderstand the true Nature of Repentance which is a perfect changing the Habit and Temper and Frame of a Mans Mind and bringing other Thoughts and Principles and Inclinations into it which is called in Scripture a new Heart and a new Spirit and this producing an entire and permanent and universal change of the Life and Actions and making a Man become better in every particular and in the whole a very good Man 5. It is observable that Repentance is all along in the Gospel made a Duty previous and antecedent to Christianity and what was supposed to go before Baptism and what was necessary before-hand to fit and prepare Men to become Christians thus they were to repent and be baptized Acts 2.38 John the Baptist who was to prepare the way for Christianity did it by preaching Repentance for this reason Because the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand Matth. 3.2 i. e. Christianity or the state of the Gospel which is agreed by all to be there meant by the kingdom of Heaven was now approaching and our Blessed Saviour upon that Principle and Argument preach'd the same Duty ver 17. From that time he began to preach and to say Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand And the Disciples of Christ preach'd this Duty Mark 6.12 when they were to prepare and dispose Men to receive Christ and to embrace Christianity and when any that were adult were received into the Church and Christianity by Baptism they were supposed to be Penitents before they were Christians It was a Duty and a Condition alwayes implyed and required that they Repented of their past Sins and sincerely promised and resolved upon a new course of Life That they who had their conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by Nature the children of wrath as the Apostle speaks Eph. 2.3 i. e. in the state they were in before they were Christians for the Gospel considers all Mankind as in a state of Sin and Guilt before they are admitted into Christianity which is a state of Pardon and Salvation that these when they were made Christians were to put off the old man with his deeds Col. 3.9 i. e. all the old Habits and Acts of Sin which they were guilty of in their unchristian state and were to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.24 and they were to become new creatures in Christ Jesus and were therefore then said to be regenerated and to be born again and are represented in Scripture as dying unto all sin in Baptism that they should not henceforth live any longer therein Rom. 6.2 They are buried with Christ by baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised from the dead even so we also who are baptized into his death should walk in newness of life ver 3. So that after Baptism we should reckon our selves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ ver 11. So that the body of sin is then to be put off and destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin ver 6. Thus though Men were considered as Sinners before their Baptism
Heaven though it be a gift is a reward too and shall be exactly proportioned in the degrees of it to the deservings and actions and behaviours of Men. The main foundation then of this Doctrine of the Efficacy or Sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance must be the case of the Thief upon the Cross i. e. the History or Relation of a Man who dyed as a Malefactor and yet certainly went to Heaven for that is the whole of it Now I doubt not but many hundred such Malefactors have gone to Heaven and many Thousand Sinners that were once bad Men but yet had they never Repented till they came to dye I do as verily believe that not one of them had gone thither but to another place where Men shall for ever repent at the same rate that most Men do who have not done so before that time To Ground and Establish this Doctrine upon this Historical Case and 't is I believe the only Doctrine that has such a foundation we must examine whether it certainly and exactly comes up in all the Particulars and Circumstances of it to the case of a wicked Mans living a very ill life till he comes to dye and then only repenting of it We must then enquire whether it plainly and certainly appears from the account the Scripture gives us of it 1. Whether he were a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his Life 2. Whether we are sure he did not Repent long before he came to dye for if these two are not certainly known nor do appear from Scripture the case may be very different and no way suit or answer the late and dying Repentance of a very wicked Man And 3. Supposing those two yet how can we tell whether this might not be an extraordinary case and such as belongs to no other Sinner whatsoever 1. Whether it do appear from the account Scripture gives us of him that he was a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his life The reason of which inquiry is this that a general habit of irreligion and wickedness through the whole course of a Mans life puts him into a more wretched and dangerous and deplorable state than any particular Act of Sin or then any one sin whatsoever for that like a Leprosie spreads over and corrupts the whole Mind lays the whole Conscience waste and roots up all the Principles of Religion and puts Men in the number of those who have no fear of God before their eyes and who live without God in the World but a Man may not be so far gone not be a Sinner of so high a rate but may be an imperfectly good Man and yet fall into a wilful sin by the suddenness or greatness of the Temptation by Surprize and Inconsideration and laxness of Thoughts by a remissness in Religion and not being duely upon his Guard and by the struggle that is in his mind between the Flesh and the Spirit between this World and another which makes the one now and then get the better of the other such an one is a kind of borderer upon Vertue and lives between the confines of that and wickedness and sometimes he is governed and brought under the power of one and sometimes is overcome and made a prey by the other Now though such an one is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven till he comes wholly off from every wilful sin and is more under the power of Religion yet he is nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven and may sooner by Repentance and becoming a good Man fit himself for it and so enter into it It does not at all appear in Scripture from the History of this Penitent Theif whether he had been a very ill Man or no in the general course of his Life only that he was a Thief which was enough to denominate him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and suffered as he himself owns justly and received the due reward of his deeds Luke 23.41 But who knows what abatements his sin might have either by extream necessity or some other circumstances which God might fairly consider and allow for though he was brought to an infamous Death here by the severity of Humane Laws Even a good Man who is so in the general course and habit of his Life may fall into a particular act of wilful sin as we see in David Moses and St. Peter and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall as the Apostle advises 1 Cor. 10.12 For no Man is perfectly out of danger whilst he is in this state of probation and infirmity and though every such Sin breaks a Mans good State and puts him into an ill one till he recovers himself by Repentance and Amendment for Mens States of Grace and Damnation are no way fixt here but are alterable in this World according to the temper of their minds and behaviour of their lives yet 't is more easie to recover from a single act than a long habit as 't is to cure a green wound than an old Ulcer or a Chronical Disease And where there is an habitual soundness within where the Mind is not vitiated with habitual Corruptions and evil Principles and irreligious Habits and Customs but has a pretty good Sense of Religion though it happens to be over-powred with a temptation there it will sooner recover it self and throw off the Disease and the Corrupt Matter by its own inward Strength and the assistance of the Divine Grace There the inward Sense and the Principles of Religion will unfold and expand themselves by the power of Restitution since though they have been prest down and overpowred yet they have not been quite broken and destroyed the Religious and Vertuous Sense will revive again in the Mind which was not wholly extinguished though very much Damped and Choaked and weakned and thus they plainly seem to be in thus penitent Thief by his Carriage to our Saviour which I shall consider by and by by his rebuking the other Thief who was railing at Christ with that most sober Reprimand Dost thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation ver 40. and by the firm belief and full perswasion he had of the happyness of another State and his Devout and Religious Prayer to Christ to remember him when he came into his Kingdom These make it very probable that he was not a very profligate or ill Man in the general course of his Life but rather such a good one who lived not in the habit of many great sins but fell into a particular Act by a Temptation that might greatly lessen it before God though it made him an Example before Men But 2. Whatever his Sin was however great and however sinful a Man he had been yet who knows how long he had repented and how sincerely and what fruits he had shown of his Repentance We know not when the theft was committed and whether he did not immediately Repent of it and make
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