these Clouds and Vapours than a Dying Hour When every thing is ready to contribute them and nothing to scatter them If then Natural Conscience and implanted Sense of God together with the Notions given us from Scripture pass through these they become very impressive and affecting for the time and yet he much mistakes Repentance who thinks it no more than a fit of Religious Melancholly But let us enquire after some more setled and constant Causes of these Penitential Motions near Death and we shall find many very likely to be so that are not yet worthy of true Repentance and therefore what springs from them is not accepted before God 1. When Men find all their Being in the World at an end and feel themselves falling they know not whither It is no strange thing they should catch at God and that they may take hold of him at Holiness also Seeing ingraffed Principles together with general Discourse teach every one how dear Holiness is to God If God and Goodness were no more than Imaginary things It would be no wonder if they who are tossed off the World and thrown over-board from it should snatch at them if there were no more in the Case than this that every one hath heard so much speech and talk of them among Men. For to him that hath nothing in reality even a Shadow a Phancy are valuable Men that are dropping through the Air or sinking under Water without Consultation offer at every thing they meet with In great Extremities short of Death they that are bereft of all worldly Assistance fly to the Divine Succours though as Jonah's Marriners they pray to an Idol instead of the true God and their Devotion is no better than Superstition which is but a Phancy in Religion What strange thing then is it for nature to cry out for God and Christ for Pardon of Sin to be delivered from Hell and to have Heaven for an everlasting Rest when all things else evidently fail as they do in Death and when not only Phancy and general Opinion but most substantial Reason inlightned by the Scripture provoke up a Man to it even for Self-preservation Yet this differs but little from howling upon our Beds for Corn and Wine and Oyl Hos 7.14 for though the things differ much in their Nature yet the Esteem Men have of them and the desire they have after them is much upon the same ground for these Spiritual things appear to that natural Sense of Self-preservation as necessary in Death as the other do in Life and Health But if the approaches of Death happen to be again drawn off the value of Spiritual things removes with them and the things of this World with all the sensual and sinful Delights of it return to their former price which argues the ineffectualness of this cause of Repentance and the Unacceptableness of the Repentance it self to God that flows from it God disclaims Men that have never come to him before their Extremity and come then only because of it In the time of their trouble they will say Arise and save us But where are thy Gods that thou madest Let them arise if they can save thee Jer. 2.27 28. Thus to such Dying Men crying out to him God says Let your former Lusts and Pleasures now be your Happiness Fools and scorners that would not be warned call upon God in their calamity and seek him early when the whirlwind of their destructions hurries them but cannot make him hear cannot find him Prov. 1.14 2. Suppose the desires after God and Eternal Happiness with all the Retinue of those Desires rise not so much from the Necessities of remove from this Life and sensible Supports but immediately from the sight of Eternal things themselves yet will not this conclude the Repentance sincere For we may easily pitch upon several so plain reasons of these quick Apprehensions of another World that it is much more strange if any Man be not struck with them and they that are are not in greater Extasies of these Considerations than that most die in some fair inclinable Temper towards them and others are extraordinarily surprized with them yet without true Repentance For First If it were no more but the leisure and uninterestedness of the Mind in all worldly things that Death brings It is no wonder that the Action of it should immediately and necessarily flow upon God for it being always in action and motion from its very Nature and God having made it for himself and the manner of its living here in the World being a slavery willingly undertaken for the Service of the Body and the Enjoyment of this present Life in its being fallen from God It is nothing strange that that Drudgery being now at an end and the chains wherein it was held just a breaking it should fall upon God and Spiritual Objects whither the stream of it was prepared to run and which are most truly its own business For the distance being so wide and irreconcilable between Man and this Earth in Death the very having nothing else to do must carry him upon the Future State seeing his Soul is such a Being as cannot naturally lie still and that State is all that it hath to work upon and further than that it is so nearly allied to it Secondly The very loosening and uncementing the Soul from the Body wherein it dwelt and wherein the Motions of it were restrained Multi enim quum remissi liberi sunt futura prospiciunt ex quo intelligitur quales futuri sint quum se plane corporis vinculis relaxaverint Cic. de Senectut hath been thought very probably to give Men lesser degrees of those Advantages near their Death which naked and free Spirits not inclosed and pent up in Bodies have whereby they have been able to make Conjectures of future things and to speak prophetically The less the Soul is bound to work by the Body the higher are its Operations All extraordinary Motions of the Soul are a kind of Ravishment from Sense Those great Prophetick Blessings of Jacob and Moses were near their Dying Gen. 49. Deut. 32. c. 33. It is therefore very easie to be thought that when the Soul and Body are ready to cleave asunder and the Spirit to be separated from Flesh that it should make an higher flight towards Eternal Things The nearer every thing is to its own Residence the more vehement is its motion said to be thither So there may very well be quick sallies of the Soul towards Eternity before it enters into it when it is so near that everlasting Receptacle of it self Thirdly We may observe in the Experience of all times every appearance of the other World hath strange effects of Fear and affrightment upon Mens Minds When any one is entring then into that whole World it may well put him upon purifying himself more than they that fall upon Leviathan Job 41.25 When Men are just upon that Region
doeth the Will of God abideth for ever No Saint shall be Transposed out of his Saintship He that is Righteous let him be Righteous still He that is Holy let him be Holy still These Things are Asaluta not to be shaken And then on the other part it must be sadly said that Wickedness shall not be Transpos'd in regard of its Guilt in regard of its Filth If not removed in this World by Faith and Repentance not in the World to come Wickedness shall be Wickedness still it shall have a House builded it shall be established Zech. 5.11 and it shall be setled on its own Base and wicked Men shall be wicked Men still When once it is come to that Time there shall be no Transposal He that is Vnrighteous let him be Vnrighteous still He that is Filthy let him be Filthy still Rev. 21.11 Now seeing all this great Doctrine of the Apostle is conveyed to us under this Symbol or Representation of an Earthquake or the Shaking of the Earth and not only of the Earth but of the Heaven also let us enquire into the Scripture-Accounts of an Earthquake and apply it to the present Occasion that it may bring us to a serious holy sense and that what we have seen in a hand breadth may move us to consider what we shall see and feel as in the whole Heaven and Earth in large and in full For if what we have been sensible of as in a Glance or in Passage hath affected any with Fear especially what was done in a part of our Nation beyond the Sea which is but a very little Thing yea a Nothing in comparison of what shall be in its own Times in its proper Times How much more ought we to be affected with the Assurances God hath given us of a Change so much greater For as it may be said to us If we have run with the Foot-men and they have wearied us How shall we contend with Horses If in the present State which is as a Land of Peace and wherein we trust we have been so affrighted What shall we do in the swelling of Jordan I come therefore to the second Head viz. To make Remarks upon the nature of such Motions and Trembles of the Earth and their Fitness to be a Shade of the Kingdom of Christ and wherein they are so And herein I propose three things 1. To consider the strict nature of Earthquakes according to the Scripture-Foundations of Discourse concerning them 2. To enquire into the Causes why God is pleas'd to make such Concussions and Convulsions in Nature 3. To observe upon the great Metaphorical or Figurative Earthquakes that is Changes in the present State of the World that have been since the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and how the Observation of them may be made subservient to the due Improvement of our Thoughts in regard to the late Earthquakes we have heard of or been at all sensible of more of late I begin then with the first Head in Four Points Point I. The Scripture teacheth us This great Globe of Earth and Water is hung by the mighty Wisdom Skill and Power of the great Geometer of Heaven and Earth The Earth being Round is on every side encompassed with Air and Skie as they who sail it round find as well as by Reason it is demonstrated as a Ball in the Air So we read Job 26.7 He stretcheth out the North over the empty Place for so to our eye and motion the meer Air seems to be and he hangeth the Earth upon nothing I know this is a Point proper to Philosophical Discussion that it may go as far as it can upon But those Questions God asked Job 38.4 c. would pose the wisest of the World Declare if thou hast understanding Who hath laid the Measures of the Earth If thou knowest who hath stretched the Line upon it so that it is in just number weight and measure Whereupon are the Foundations thereof fastned or who laid the Corner-stone thereof There may be handsome and plausible solving the Phenomenae as they speak before Men who know as little the best of them one as another but before God all is but darkning Counsel by Words without Knowledge Now when it is so that the Earth hangs thus How must it needs be that God as he pleases may shake the Earth out of its place with a touch of his hand and all the Inhabitants thereof and his Enemies particularly be shaken out of it or off from it or whither or how he pleases For if that bold Man of Mathematicks durst say Give me where to set my foot and I will remove the Earth what can infinite Understanding and Power do or if he does but slacken his hand from holding the Ballance even keeping the Scales of Earth and Air just or if there be such a one as with great Reason hath been thought the Poize of the Central Fire Even all would be in immediate Confusion On this Consideration then any kind of Earthquakes is no wonder the wonder is they are not every day and not to the utmost The only security is the unchangeableness of Divine Ordination for such a time as he hath decreed since the Flood wherein in all appearance of Reason as well as Scripture there was even in this regard a Jog as one may say of it 2. The Ballance is in this regard yet so Even and just that nothing we account most surely founded stands so fast so firm and secure as the Earth that it cannot be moved So that allowing it to have a Diurnal or every days Revolution from East to West yet it is with such equality that it disturbs all upon it no more than a Fly sitting it self fast on a Globe is unsettled by its being turn'd round Notwithstanding this motion the Earth is founded on the Seas and Established on the Floods that is the Waters are so every way compacted under and about and over it that it is as it were founded upon it as on Pillars of Marble which may have been understood first according to the excellent forementioned Theory of the Earth 2. As the Cement and Fixation of the upper Parts of the Earth is the moisture it receives from the Waters 3. As the ambient or round-about Air hath a more immediate force upon the Waters to crowd and keep them close to the Earth than the Air it self could have upon the Earth the Water being a middle Body between Air and Earth even as the Air is between that subtile Matter we call Ether and Air. So that the Earth hath Foundations Pillars Corner-stone in Scripture-Language And this is indeed absolutely necessary for such kind of Bodies and Works as are to move and rest upon this Earth which is as a Sea in regard of the variety of Creatures in it wherein are Things creeping innumerable and both great and small Beasts and Man the highest Order of Animals Now these require such a
the midst of the Paradise of God and even in any of the sadnesses of the Servants of God by reason of Afflictions Temptations any Agonies of Conscience Desertions there is Light in the midst of that Darkness whereas in the false Joys of counterfeit Repentance there are such either presumptuous sensual Intermixtures or such a want of true Spiritual Light that the midst of that Joy is Heaviness But the Fruit of this Repentance is that Peace of God that passeth all understanding Phil. 4.7 guarding the Heart and Mind through Jesus Christ 5. To all these both Motives Means and Signs of Repentance must be always added Prayer even all Prayer and Supplication with Perseverance and continuance therein even to extraordinary Watchings and Fastings as occasion requires Ephes 6.18 Colos 4.2 Luke 11.9 For as the Soul in Prayer and Supplication feels the strong motions and excitations of Repentance by setting before our selves and making close Applications of our selves to the great considerations of God of Christ of Sin of Holiness of Eternal Happiness and Misery so herein is the earnestness of Supplication asking seeking and knocking for the Holy Spirit engaged and employ'd as knowing him the supreme Mover Principle and efficient of Repentance and the Divine Spirit coming down to Dwell in the Spirit of the true Penitent and shedding its efficacies and operations in it as a Spirit of Grace and Supplication seals to the Soul the truth of Repentance and becomes a spiritual visible sign and evidence of the Truth of it as Christ says of Paul upon Repentance behold he Prayeth Acts 9.11 6. Some Great and Heroick Acts and Effects of Repentance according to the Ability and Opportunity of Persons and according to the Sins persons have been guilty of before Repentance are sometimes absolutely necessary Evidences of the Truth of Repentance and sometimes Illustrious and extraordinary Signals of the mighty Power and Force and largeness of Efficacy in this grace of Repentance where it meets with Subjects whom God by outward enablements of Providence as well as inward Grace and Power hath fitted hereunto Such are in cases of great Scandal and publick Offence publick and open Confessions of sin endeavours and close Applications upon Persons that have been of the knot and fellowship of our sins or private Parties and confederates in them moving them by all the Sentiments of our Minds and the Affections of our Hearts to Repentance sollemn Fastings and Humiliations with usual Watchings not only for the Taming bringing Down and Abasing of our selves and by the acknowledgment of our own unworthiness of the least of Mercies and that we are worthy of Wrath and Judgment only and to be strip'd of all Enjoyments but because the Heart is so taken up and engag'd that it can mind nor attend nor be at leisure for the most necessary Refreshing of Bodily Nature which is made and taught and disciplin'd as heretofore to serve sin so now to cry out for Mercy and Pardon and to undergo the severities of Repentance and to be brought under to them in extraordinary Weepings according to the most Affectionate Emotions of the Soul and suitable Temper of Body And such as these are also the Acts of just Restitution to persons injured according to our utmost Abilities or great Alms-givings and acts of Mercy of which Zaccheus Luke 19. is a great Example Great Acts of Service to Jesus Christ in the Salvation of Souls either by our own personal Ministry as Paul so zealously Preaching the Faith Gal. 1.23 Psal 66.16 he once destroyed or private endeavours by Holy Discourses and Declarings what God hath done for our Souls by Exhortations and good Counsels by Holy Examples by great Liberalities for the promotion of Christianity and the Powers of it in Repentance and general Reformation and bringing in Souls to the most publick open and notorious renunciations of former sins and the very instruments of them of which we have a great example in the burning their Magical Books of so great valew Acts 19.19 Job 34.31 These are not to be bound as heavy Burdens to the entanglement and enthralment of Conscience upon All but according to the opportunities and advantages Persons have their state of Body temper of Mind freedom of Time abilities of Estate and leaving to supreme Grace the giving of various degrees of Grace and making among the Pleiades the watry Weeping Stars of Repentance one Star to differ from another in Glory But when there is a meeting and concurrence of all these or an eminency in any they who can shew forth the truth of Repentance in these Fruits Job 38.41 1 Tim. 3.13 purchase to themselves good Degrees in the Academy or School of Repentance and bring great Honour to Christ and to it and according to our Talents receiv'd sincerity in each of them is essential to the truth of our Repentance and if they are in us and abound they make us to be neither Barren nor Vnfruitful in this great Gospel Grace given from the Lord Jesus but without any trurh of them we are as a Well without Water Clouds without Rain frothy Waves driven of some Imaginary or Earthly Winds and Vapors Epist Jude v. 12. and tossed and in great danger of prooving falling Stars for whom is reserv'd the blankness of darkness for ever 4th I come now to the Fourth Head in this Head of the Doctrine of Repentance viz. The great saving benefit the blessing of this Grace and Gift of Repentance which hath the upper and the neither Spings Josh 15.19 from the neither Springs all gracious Affections and Fruits of a sollemn and serious Resipiscency or growing Wise upon sad Afflicting Remembrances and reviews of sinful ways and the upper Springs of Joy Peace Happiness and Blessedness for ever and eternal Rejoycings we have so Sorrowed so Repented Of this I will give but a very short Representation because the enlargement upon it more properly belongs to another grand principle in the Doctrine of Christ and yet what I do say I will endeavor distinguishingly to Discourse it to the Doctrine of Repentance and with a peculiarity to it 1. In that it is Repentance to Salvation wrought by a sorrow after God it is ordain'd by God as a security and preservative by his especial Grace in Christ from everlasting Weeping Wailing and gnashing of Teeth a Repentance without any Fruit or Effect but a continual Circulation of it self in Horrors and fruitless renewals without ease or remedy without possibility of Amendment of recovery to God and Holiness For in Hell there is no such Woe therefore to you that Laugh now without this true Repentance For you shall weep and weep for ever it is the state of utter Darkness extremity of Darkness and to extremity of Duration even Eternal Duration But true Repentance hath had its Proportion here 〈◊〉 this World of sorrow that God Accepts in Christ and through his Agonies for sin 2. It is not only a
that we may not be pleased and contented with a Counterfeit with any other Repentance than that unto Salvation not to be Repented of Least we for ever Repent of our Repentance in Hell where there is no place of Evangelical saving Repentance but of that only which is a barren Fiery Horror and Despaire scorching the Conscience for ever and not allaying it with a Drop of Water to Cooll outragious Tongue Luke 16.24 Blaspheming at the same time God and Christ and our impenitent selves who would not Repent while we had space and place for our Repentance Infer 5. Let us by all the most moving Considerations of the Evil of sin the hatefulness and unreasonableness of it the sense of the Goodness and Grace of God in Christ all his Judgments all his Mercies the sense of an Eternal Misery and Punnishment from his Presence be strongly mov'd excited stirr'd and led to Repentance Infer 6. Let us rejoyce in the sweet Reposes of Conscience when we have truly Repented in the infinite Power Authority and Supreme right of God to Pardon upon Repentance not dependent upon Man nor upon the Will of Man Who is a God like unto him who Pardons Iniquity Transgression and Sin and casts it into the depth of the Sea who makes by his Pardon sins as Scarlet and Crimson to be White as Snow and Wooll that blots out Iniquity as a Cloud and a thick Cloud with the same Potency and Ease that the Sun does off a Cloud and with infinitely greater Let us Rejoyce in the great Efficacies of the Redeemer Pardoning sin upon Earth as the great High Priest of our Profession and the Bishop of our Souls Absolving truly Repenting Sinners by the Witness of his Blood sprinkling the Heart from an evil Conscience and speaking better things than the Blood of Abel The Blood as of a Lamb without spot Offer'd by the Eternal Spirit Purging the Conscience from dead works together with and even as the Author and Finisher of faith and repentance from dead works to serve the Living God Heb. 9. c. 10. c. 12. Let us rejoyce in the Witness of the Divine Spirit Sealing and Witnessing to us by Repentance washing the Body the whole Conversation as with pure water Let us rejoyce in all the Blessed Promises and Assurances of the Word of God made by it to sincere Penitents which are yea and Amen in Christ For all these are of far greater Authority Truth Certainty than All Bindings or Loosings on Earth whether by the Ecclesiastical as we call it Administration of the Keyes or by Men forgiving one Another however necessary these may be in their place Infer 7th Seeing the Kingdom of God and of Heaven is the great Motive to Repentance as hath been before on great Reason made out The high Reason we have to believe that by the Apostles calling it the Last time the last hour the ends of the World so many Hundreds of Years ago we must needs be now upon the very last issue and determination of that Time when the Kingdom shall appear in Glory and all other kind of Time shall be no more How great a Cloud does therefore Encompass us that we should by no means be willing or able to Rend to Engage us to run with Patience the Race of Repentance set before us Heb. 12.1 and to that End to lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Repentance that it may be to Salvation and never to be Repented of Hearing him who in the days of his Flesh because the offers and first appearances and First Fruits of his Kingdom were then begun Preach'd saying Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand so the full Harvest of that Kingdom being now ready to appear he does by the Voices of all his Prophets in the Old and New Testament instantly Preach to us Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand And of how strong and close Connexion the Kingdom of God and of Christ and Repentance are I shall more fully and largely at this time Represent as a most solemn Conclusion of this Discourse There is a fixed space given and a peculiar Interval Appointed Lying between the time of the Apostacy call'd the Time Times and Half Time or the 1260 Days and the Time of the Vials And it is 30 years making the 1260 1290 Years Dan. 12.11 even as the 45 Years of the Vials to the Absolutely blessed state of the Kingdom of Christ in Glory when the Saints shall all stand in their Lots fill up to that very Fulness of Times Now at this space of the Thirty Years the Spirit shall be powred out from on High The Song of the Lamb which hath been so long out of use that it becomes as it were a new Song and can be at first learnt only by the 144000 shall be Taught by them immediately and the Everlasting Gospel shall be without delay upon it Preach'd to every Nation Tongue and People under Heaven and then there shall be as in preparation to the Glory of the Kingdom of Christ but under the Influence of that Kingdom in Succession a mighty Spirit of Godly Sorrow working Repentance to Salvation never then indeed to be Repented of pour'd out upon all Flesh Now because this is a point of great moment to the Doctrine of Repentance and sets forth much of the Excellency of Repentance I shall give very great Scriptures and argue upon them for the truth of ir Scripture 1. The first Scripture I would insist upon shall be from a consideration of that great Ordinance of God concerning the Day of Attonement among the Children of Israel This Ordinance We find Levit. 23.27 In the tenth day of the seventh the Sabbattical Month there shall be a day of attonement It shall be an Holy Convocation to you and you shall afflict your Souls And you shall do no work in that same day For it is a day of Attonement to make Attonement for you before the Lord your God for whatsoever Soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same Day he shall be cut off from among his People And whatsoever Soul it be that doth any work in that same day the same Soul will I destroy from among his People It shall be a statute for ever throughout your Generations in all your Dwellings It shall be to you a Sabbath of Rest and you shall Afflict your Souls And on that day there were the great rites of Sacrifice the Bullock the sin Offering the Blood of which was carried into the Holy of Holies to make an attonement for the Vncleannesses of the Priests and People and to reconcile the Holy of Holies and the Mercy Seat and the Tahernacle of the Congregation and the Goat that was to be Kill'ed in the same Manner and the scape-Goat throughout c 16. Now that which I lay in the Foundation is That God never appointed
dependences together with earnestest Application to the Grace of God These unclean Spirits therefore that dissemble a retreat return immediately and make a Prey of the deluded Soul Acts 19.14 c. 3. Although Heaven and Hell Happiness and Misery take up the thoughts of a true Penitent yet not separated from God and Christ but as it were compounded into the Sense of God angry and the desire of Attonement with him in Jesus Christ. Happiness and Misery considered apart are not the object of the gracious Soul But God and Christ considered apart are an infinitely sufficient Reason of Repentance The clear love of God upwards the Soul as a Father in Christ without Reflections upon Happiness is though not the single yet the paramount Consideration in Repentance unfeigned But Men a Dying are generally so over-possessed with the Terrors of an Eternal Suffering and meer desires of Freedom from pain and of well-being and so in haste that they generally miss these higher Considerations which being further off not only from corrupt Nature but even from natural Conscience are not commonly espied but therefore argue greater Sincerity and truth of Heart 4. The truest Repentance lies in the bosom of Faith the apprehensions of the Love and Goodness of God in Christ melt the Soul and give it most perfect Separation from Sin the most effectual Purification of the Heart all which express the height of Repentance Upon the soft Fire of the pardoning Goodness of God the Soul most kindly distils into repentant Tears Here flows that Spirit of Grace and ingenuous Goodness which bringeth forth the clearest and holiest Affection towards God But at the time we are now speaking of It is very seldom that either Horror or Presumption do not swallow all Presumption where there is little Sense or Judgment of the Case Horror where the Judgment is clearer and the Sense quicker for evey thing disposes now rather to Fear and to the Spirit of Bondage Rom. 8.15 and a Man naturally does all he does under a servile dread of God and his Eternal Justice And though there may be much mention of Christ and desire of Mercy through him yet it is but as a Malefactor convicted beseeches the Mercy of the Judge no otherwise than as of a Judge So such call out for the Mercy of God to pardon them but still as a Judge not with the Spirit of the Son sent into the Heart the Spirit of Adoption crying Abba Father Nor with that love that casteth out unworthy Fear Gal. 4.6 And indeed how can it be otherwise there having been no acquaintance with God in the way Job 22.21 but a long Enmity and the time now too strait for a free and full Consideration of the riches of Grace such as may still an awakened Conscience Fear presses in every way and shuts out Faith What can now redeem the Soul from this hellish Terror but a light from Heaven immediately darting into it a Grace above that Grace that ordinarily saves Men For a well setled Trust and Confidence in Mercy according to the general Rule is not but after some sad debates and experimental Consultations that have passed between the sense of Sin and the affiancing Acts of the Soul upon Christ This Repentance then is in great danger of missing the Spirit of the Gospel and falling into the Rank of those Repentances of Cain Esau Judas This I have endeavoured to shew that though we suppose a Dying Man to spread his Soul and Thoughts every way and to all the parts of Repentance yet it is extremely to be suspected there will want the true and right quality of them in regard of the very disadvantageous Circumstances wherein such an one is found and the great unfitness of the Soul at that time to begin to do anything worthy to which it hath not been before inured or if it did begin it would be much more unlikely to bring forth fruit as our Saviour speaks to perfection Luke 8.14 I add nothing of the Exercises of a full and well grown Repentance whereby it is daily espying the risings of Sin and suppressing them and filling up the Defects of Holiness and Obedience because they are not to be thought possible in the point I am now speaking of and I have already given a Resolution in that Case I shall now set my self to find out the low Causes that are alway to be suspected to have the great Influence upon such a Latter-end Penitency In general therefore we must take notice that there are several vapors of misapprehension rising upon the Soul when we are a Dying that do so disguise it to it self and disfigure the true face of it that from thence arise dangerous Mistakes concerning a Mans Condition towards God We see into how many shapes upon ordinary Occurrences we change and how easily we exchange them for quite different without any good Cause what continual Ebbs and Flows there are of the Humours and how do these cast the Ballance of the Superiour Soul One Man is every hour some several sorts of Men. How much more do great Accidents and removes out of one Condition into another alter us Which yet are but the sudden and just now state of our Minds upon such Alterations which not continuing we return to our former Figure Vnstable and weak as water Gen. 49.3 we take the form of every Vessel we are put into Who knows then whether his Dying Repentance be any more than the Mould not of his Mind but of his Dying Condition approaching him big with so great a Change We know many things befal us in our Lives which put a greater sense of Religion upon us than we find at other times and yet how variable are we our goodness at such times is as the Morning Dew and as the early Dew it goeth away Hose 6.4 How often are we from the occasions of Mercies Afflictions Fears Hopes good Discourses carried into high Apprehensions of God And we lose them again we know not how Now out of doubt a Dying Condition of any thing we meet with in the World is most apt to move us upon God and a Sense of him But can we think Those fleeting Shoots of the Soul that have no certainty are accepted for Repentance How strangely doth Melancholly and Oppressions of that transform Men which when it falls upon the Motions of Conscience gives us strong Imaginations of Eternal Things which yet being nothing but the cast of that Melancholly upon the Thoughts when that is removed they are quite of another hue It is evident the Mind sees much through the Body and the Representations are coloured by its Temper As the Eye sees through yellow or green Glass differently from the things themselves So the Serenity or Cloudiness of the Humours makes a different Reflection of things upon the Mind and the liveliness or heaviness of the Spirits incline us to very varying Apprehensions Now what time is more like to be so incumber'd with
in a clear light and full leisure 3. For the severity of God in denying his Grace though I acknowledge his Indignation condemns many who have dallied with him and their own Souls to be suck'd in again by the whir-pool of their Lusts when they would have risen out of them yet this Indignation is never so certainly at the height as when Men have provoked it as long as they could It is most miserable therefore to make our last motions within the command of such a horrible Pit lest they prove only the struggles of sinking Men yet this we must do if we are not before got out of it There is much greater hope how bad soever their Condition may be to them who are yet in the hand of patience lifting and leading them to Repentance Rom. 2.4 2 Pet. 3.9 and do not despise it but account it Salvation Objection 6. This Doctrin does not savor enough of the Grace of the Gospel that would have all Men come to Repentance Answ To discourse the Severities of the Gospel to the ends of the Gospel is most Evangelical Discourse For as the Gospel doth with all clearness declare its own Rigors that Men might not mistake it for a loose and careless Doctrin and so miss the Salvation of it so have I discovered the great hazard of a Dying Repentance that Living Men might be perswaded not to cast themselves upon it and Dying Men excited to an Action suitable to the extremity of their Case And this is indeed preaching the Gospel and to be moved upon it with fear to prepare an Ark to the saving our Souls before the flood come Heb. 11.7 is as true an effect of Faith as to be constrained by love to live to him 2 Cor. 5.14 that hath died for us I say as true and gives us a Title to the Inheritance of the Righteousness which is by Faith together with the other For the Prudence of Faith makes us apprehensive of the Reasons of Danger and so to Fear even as the Gratitude of it ties us with the Obligations of Love This is not that Fear that Love casts out but that it self quickens and is also both quickned and guarded by it nor is it the bondage but the wisdom of Fear Rom. 8.15 Job 28.28 Objection 7. But is the general Judgment of Divines thus Answer All judicious Divines are very tender of binding the Prerogative of Grace or clipping off the Action of Men towards God even at this time See besides the concurring Judgment of the Ancients Bishop Andrews Sermons on Repentance Dr. Hammond and Dr. Taylor in their Treatises of this Point Bolton Dyke c. in Observation whereof I have desired to be cautious herein also But in their cautions against Presumption their Expressions amount to the utmost I have spoken Infer 1. But setting aside the whole danger of a Death-Bed Repentance Let me now lastly thus reason and thus expostulate Why should we desire to Repent so late It is good to be betimes doing that which is most comporting with our truest Happiness Reconciliation with God return to Him his Favour to obey Him these are the truest Freedom and Peace of a Man at all times Great Peace have they which love thy Law and nothing shall offend them Psal 119.165 He lives in the least pain that lives holiest I made haste therefore and delayed not to keep thy Commandments Psal 119.60 I seized upon so great an Enjoyment as soon as I could afraid to be kept off from it too long To fear God and keep his Commandments is the whole duty of Man Eccles 12.13 When a Man considers Life and that he hath but a Moment of it and that therefore he would live that Moment as much as may be he shall find the highest of Life the top of Life to be Godliness which hath all the promises of this life and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 To pursue this World and the Vanities of it is not only with greatest folly and impertinency to lanch our selves in a great Vessel the Greatness of our Affection and with solemn Preparations our strongest Action into the low water the shallow of Life which because it cannot carry so great a bulk increases the Toyl and Vexation as well as enhanses the Vanity and Folly of doing nothing at so great an expense But worse than this it is the loading our selves with guilt under a delusion of Pleasure that gives us secret disquiet and torment while we are laying it on and cannot be laid down as we please but with more sensible and industrious Anguish than we heap'd it upon us I mean the sense of our misdoings and Contrition for them so necessary to work Repentance To conclude Seeing to die is the end of all Men Eccles 7.2 Repentance is to be chosen while we live that we may die with the greatest quiet without those Agonies of Conscience those cold Sweats those sinking Eyes and fainting Spirits for he dies with most ease that most surveys Death and looks into all the Retirements of it before-hand that knows it perfectly and all its strength such an one governs himself in it as in a most important Action with Decency and Freedom He is not hal'd by Death but received by it Into thy hands I commend my spirit Luke 23.46 he lays himself orderly into the shade of Death Whereas so long adherence to the Pleasures of Sin gives Death a Violence It makes Men both unwilling and afraid to die This night thy Soul shall be required Luke 12.20 Life is exacted of a Sensualist and torn from him that is resigned by a Spiritual and Mortified Man Good Men die in an active Sense they know how to die others die passively they are forced to die This great difference prefers to us Dying daily before that forcible Dying at once The wisdom of Dying was accounted by Heathens one of the worthy Businesses and Imployments of Life and that required much study Christianity gives us the true Rules of it and they lie in waiting till our change come Time is short 1 Cor. 7.29 they therefore that use this World should not use it down to the Bran sensually but only take the advantages of it to a higher Life Else being met on the sudden by Death they are like those that fall off from Life with Violence that is Headlong but they that live in the Sense of God and an Eternal Condition alight with care and ease It is therefore not only greatest Safety but truest Frugality and Improvement of Life to Repent betimes and when we come to die the easiest and sweetest way of dying Not indeed a Dying but a Translation into Immortality and Blessedness Inference 2. Seeing the Wise and their works are all in the hand of God and that he giveth Wisdom to the Wise Man's Heart to discern both Time and Judgment and not to be taken as Fishes in an evil Net