may much more abound and he may make up the failures as far as he can of his former Life and give the best satisfaction and reparation he is able to God and Religion whom he had so highly injured and affronted that he may not be contented only to get out of an ill State and be just safe and out of danger but may endeavour to rise higher and grow in Grace and all manner of Goodness and attain to higher improvements and perfections of Vertue and Holiness This should be his aim and design and the business of his whole Life and this will certainly be so if he has the true love of Vertue of God or of Heaven in his Soul he will then be doing more good growing more vertuous more rich towards God and continually thriving and increasing in his good Condition and his Heavenly Treasure as Worldly Men are in their Earthly Trades and Riches he will be dayly adding to his store and knowing the worth of Vertue the more the more he hath of it he will by a laudable Covetousness be every day raising his Stock improving his Talents and abounding more and more in all useful Vertues and Christian good Works which should be the great business and design of every Christian all his Life This will give unspeakable comfort peace and satisfaction to his Mind and set him not only out of danger and free him from an ill state but out of all doubts fears and uncertainties in his thoughts about it for the more perfect we grow in Vertue the more chearful and well-grounded hopes and assurance we shall have in our selves and the more confidence towards God 'T is hard to know and distinguish exactly between the first lines and parting 's of Vice and Vertue of a bad and good State where the lowest degree of one begins and the other ends as 't is difficult to know the first conception and beginning of Life in an Embrio and the first day-break of the morning but when Life appears by sensible motions and visible acts and operations there is no doubt about it nor when the Sun is up and come to the Meridian that it is perfect day so what is the beginning of the Spiritual Life in a Christian Penitent or when he first is delivered from the Power of Darkness into Light and a Christian good State is not so easily known but 't is plain and clear when he performs the proper acts and operations of the Divine Life and walks as a child of light and his goodness shines more and more unto perfect day i. e. when he becomes more thoroughly vertuous and more perfectly a good Man it will be more out of doubt to himself and he will have all the chearful and comfortable evidence of it to his unspeakable satisfaction 'T is generally very low and imperfect degrees of Religion and Vertue that make us fearful and doubtful the more perfect we grow the more assured we shall have reason to be of our good State and though the Penitents tears at first bring clouds and darkness fear and melancholly over him yet perfect Vertue when he is restored to it will make a perfect day and bring in the clearest comfort peace and satisfaction to his Mind and thus though he sowed in Tears he shall reap in Joy FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Armes in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1693. THE Wisdom of God manifested in the Worls of the Creation in two Parts viz. The Heavenly Bodies Elements Meteors Fossils Vegetables Animals Beasts Birds Fishes and Insects more particularly in the Body of the Earth its Figure Motion and Consistency 〈◊〉 the admirable Structure of the Bodies of Man and other Animals as also in their Generation c. By John Ray Fellow of the Royal Society The Second Edition very much enlarged In 8vo Three Discourses concerning the Changes and Dissolution of the World The First of the Creation and Chaos The Second of the General Deluge Fountains formed Stones Subterraneous Beds of Shells Earthquakes and other Changes in our Terraqueous Globe The Third of the General Conflagration Dissolution and means of bringing them to pass Of the Future State c. In 8vo Dr. Rich. Luck 's Practical Christianity Or An Account of the Holiness which the Gospel enjoyns with Motives to it and the Remedies it proposes against Temptations with a Prayer concluding each distinct Duty In 8vo Enquiry after Happiness in several Parts c. The Second Edition enlarged In 8vo The Duty of Apprentices and Servants 1. The Parents Duty how to Educate their Children that they may be fit to be employed and trusted 2. What Preparation is needful for such as enter into Service with some Rules to be observed by them how to make a wise and happy Choice of a Service 3. Their Duty in Service towards God their Master and themselves with suitable Prayers to each Duty and some Directions peculiarly to Servants for the Worthy Receiving the Holy Sacrament Published for the Benefit of Families In 8vo The Spiritual Year Or Devout Contemplations digested into distinct Arguments for every Month in the Year and for every Week in that Month Containing most of the Principal and Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity being very plain and useful for the Instruction of Families in all Christian Duties and for the disposing of them to a Religious and Spiritual Conversation In 8vo A Treatise of Church-Government or a Vindication of Dioocesan Episcopacy against the Objections of the Dissenters in Answer to some Letters lately Printed concerning the same Subject By R. Burscough M.A. In 8vo
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
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
to the people for all forms and modes and habits of speech like those of cloths would look odd and antick and uncouth that were not so as they were very antient and very common among them and from thence taken up by our Saviour so they were very agreeable to Nature and a most useful lively and familiar way of representing any Truth or Doctrine by way of History and Similitude They shewed us the thing in an Image and Picture so that we saw it as it were before us and it thereby made a strong impression upon both the fancy and the memory and they set us a pattern and example of it by which we might the most easily comprehend understand and remember it and have it as it were in a Scene drawn before our eyes and acted before us which are the most natural ways by which Mankind are to be taught moved and affected Abstracted naked Truths are many times too fine for their gross thoughts and understandings and they cannot conceive Spiritual things so well as when they are drest up in another garb and brought down to their Senses Most of our thoughts and apprehensions are formed by such ideas and images on the brain and mind as are the draughts and models of the things themselves and Parables have these two things in them which are apt to make the strongest impression upon the minds of Men which are Imagery or Picture Acting or Representation by Example Now in these Dramatical Composures and Instructions there is a main Plot or one chief and Principal Design runs through the whole and is chiefly aimed at and carried on in all the parts and acts of it and that is chiefly to be minded as the Scope and Aim of the Parable the Air and Countenance and Eye as I may call it of this moral Picture which looks upon such a principal Truth Doctrine and Instruction as what it intends chiefly to convey and represent thereby to our minds Now the very Scope and Drift and Design of the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins is to show that we ought to be always prepared and provided for another World and that there is no hopes of entring into Heaven by any thing we can do on a sudden when the Bridegroom is just a coming and when Death is just upon us and very near us and we are unprepared before for it These three things are plainly meant and imported and aimed at by it 1. That we cannot enter into Heaven without Holy and Vertuous Habits and Dispositions of Mind 2. That these are not to be had or attained on a sudden 3. That without those we shall be shut out of Heaven notwithstanding our most earnest Desires Prayers and Entreaties and all other Applications we can make to enter in 1. That we cannot enter into Heaven without Holy and Vertuous Habits and Dispositions of mind Those are meant by the Oyl which the Wise Virgins had in their Vessels but the Foolish were without and not sensible of the need of it till it was too late to think that our Soul may be happy and fit for Heaven without those is as foolish and inconsiderate as to think that a Lamp will burn without Oyl without that which is to feed and constitute and maintain the flame Vertue and holiness are the main Things in which the happyness and Perfection of the Mind consists the highest Improvement of all its faculties and capacities and the foundation of all that Peace Joy Bliss and Satisfaction which it can have in it self or any thing else and the only qualification to make it capable of receiving all the happyness that can be communicated to it without these as we are unworthy of being received into Heaven which is the highest reward which God appoints to those who most faithfully serve and obey him and which he will never give to such vile and undeserving Wretches as have contemned it all their lives and not thought it worth any of their pains and endeavours and therefore he has barred and excluded all wilful Sinners out of it of what kind soever by a positive Decree and Declaration 1 Cor. 6.10 Galat. 5.19 20. So they shut out themselves by a Natural Incapacity and Unfitness for Heaven is the Place and Region of the purest Vertue and the most perfect and God-like Holiness and nothing else can dwell there or be capable of the pleasures and enjoyments that are to be met with in it An old Sinner with his corrupt Habits and depraved and vicious Inclinations about him would find nothing there to entertain him no suitable objects or proper actions to delight and please him but would be as unfit to be took from his Vices and put into Heaven as a Swine from wallowing in the mire to be placed on a Throne As God will not suffer any such impurity to appraoch that holy place nor any unclean thing to enter into it so it could not be supposed capable of enjoying the proper and Spiritual Happiness of it till it was very much changed and altered and brought off from the love of Vice to the love of God and Goodness and so fitted to partake both of the favour of one and the good and happiness of the other 'T is certain none but good Men shall enter into Heaven and partake of the Joys and Glories above which God hath laid up for those that love him all others are both unworthy and uncapable to enjoy them and shall never taste of any part of them as I shall show by a few Considerations 1. From the Nature of God 2. From the Nature of Heaven as a Gift and Reward 3. From the Nature of its Happiness 4. From the Nature of our Minds which are to be the subjects of it 1. From the Nature of God which is the standard and measure both of all Holiness and Happiness too so that the more any Being approaches to that the nearer it is to Happiness and the more contrary it is to that the more miserable it must necessarily be Now Holiness and Vertue is the only thing by which we can be like God and become partakers of the Divine Nature and are changed into the same image and the greatest resemblance of his Glorious Perfection 2 Cor. 3.18 and therefore 't is the only thing that can advance us to the highest degrees of Happiness That which makes the Devils themselves such miserable wretches nay hell it self so wretched a state is their contrariety and repugnancy to God and Goodness their being so directly opposite to the Divine Nature their not having the least Ray of Divine Goodness and Holiness to dwell in that place of darkness the sink and centre of all Sin and Wickedness And Heaven it self is therefore so happy so blissful a place because 't is the Region of all Divine Vertue and Holiness because it advances us to a God-like State and Perfection and transforms us into the nearest likeness of God himself and is the