suffer under it he cannot be my disciple Luk. 14.27 This God peremptorily and indispensably exacts of us and there is all the reason in the world why he should For he will infinitely recompence in the next world either the want or loss of all those things which for his sake we are content to be without in this Heaven and eternal life will be an abundant and incomparably surpassing compensation all the wants and sufferings of this present time being as S t Paul sayes utterly unworthy to be compared with that Glory which shall then be revealed in us Rom. 8.18 Let no man therefore disobey Gods Laws for the love of the world for the supplying of his wants and the satisfaction of his appetites and yet for all that perswade himself that God will own him and connive at his disobedience For in doing so he plainly renounces God and sets the World above him he makes his Duty truckle to his Interest he slights obedience and submits to a temptation He does the work of sin for the interest which tempts to it and that will certainly bring upon him that death which God has established for the wages of it Thirdly A third pretence whereby men justifie to their own souls the indulged transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others is because those transgressions wherein they allow themselves are only such as are sins of temper and complexion age or way of life Sometimes mens place and way of life is a continual temptation to some particular sin and if they may but have leave to indulge that they will abandon every other The Courtier takes himself obliged by the fashion of his place to lies and dissimulation ostentation and vanity to sinfull compliances and faithless engagements to promise all but to perform nothing The Merchant in pursute of his gain serves the end of his trade by fraud and dishonesty He accounts it a piece of his Art to over-reach to defraud customes to vend false wares and set exacting prices The Lawyer thinks it a part of his profession to encourage strife and foment difference the malice and revenge the wrath and bitterness the slanders and evil-speakings the strife and contentions which are other mens sins are his livelihood These sins being ever before them are alwayes a snare to them for they are continually importuned by them and it must be a toilsome pains and an uninterrupted watchfulness which can preserve them from being either won or wearied into the commission of them And since obedience in these instances is a thing which they can so very hardly spare they hope that God in mercy will not exact it but will graciously accept them upon their service in other particulars although here they continue to disobey him Other sins men are invited and importunately tempted to by their age and condition their particular temper and complexion Lust and rashness are the vices of youth as craft and covetousness are of the gray hairs Some sins are rooted in mens very natures for some are naturally inclined to be passionate and hasty some to be peevish and others to be malicious and revengefull The temper of their bodies hurries on some to lust and intemperance some to turbulency and fierceness and others to slavish fears and sinfull compliances Nay a sharp and long affliction will sometimes embitter even a good nature and make it habitually sowr and fretfull peevish and morose So that mens very natural temper their age and condition prove many times an uninterrupted sollicitation to some sin or other and they alwayes fall by being alwayes under the power of their temptation Now when men find that some sins have got thus near to them and have taken such deep root in their way of life nay in their very natures since they will not be at the pains to reform and amend they expect that God should be so gracious as to dispense with them As for all the instances of this kind he must abate them seeing they will not perform them his pardoning goodness must supply all the defects of their sloth For God and they must still be agreed and therefore because they cannot well abandon some of their darling lusts and bosom sins for his sake the compliance must fall on his side and he must desert and cancel all those severe and grating Laws to serve and pleasure them They will obey him most willingly in all other things only in these they beg that he would excuse them they will do any thing else for his sake which doth not contradict their beloved sin and never displease him but when they cannot otherwise fulfill and pleasure it Thus for instance the Covetous man will obey in keeping back from drunkenness and whoredom from ambition and profuseness and all other sins which are expensive But as for those other duties of suffering loss our selves rather than defrauding and over-reaching others of a contented mind and contempt of the world of alms and beneficence and all the chargeable expressions of an active love and an operative charity here he stands upon his points and chooses to dispute rather than to perform to article rather than to obey The peevish and angry man will readily keep the commands of Justice and Temperance he will neither spoil his neighbours Goods nor wrong his Bed nor pamper and defile his own body he will do any thing which either ministers to his reigning lust or which doth not contradict and make against it But then as for the commands of meekness and patience of long-suffering and forgiveness of speaking well and doing good to enemies of passing over provocations and peaceableness and all other instances of pardoning and forgetting injuries in these God must excuse him for his dear lust opposes them and he can not he will not serve him in the practice of them Some who are of a tractable and submissive of a soft and governable temper will observe readily all those duties which their constitution has made easie and which their natural genius enclines them to They will be constant performers of all the cheap because agreeable duties of submission to Governours and obedience to publick Constitutions of uniformity in worship of honour and observance of the Laws and establishments and of all things belonging to the Churches Vnity and outward peace But as for the severities of an inward and hearty Religion in mortification and self-denial in paring off all sinfull lusts and exorbitant desires in patience and taking up the Cross and in all other hard instances of duty and a holy life here they withdraw their service because they must contradict their natures and go against their ease and set themselves not to obey these Laws but to evacuate or evade them Whereas others who are of a temper more severe but withall of a querulous and restless a busie and ungovernable spirit will keep off from atheism and prophaneness from idolatry and witchcraft and other heinous impieties from drunkenness and
revellings from fornication and adultery from oppression and fraud and other alike gross and notorious instances of injustice and immorality For all these their strict temper can easily avoid they have no great temptation to them and are therefore able without much pains to abstain from them But then as for those other sins which agree with the bent and inclination of their busie and ungovernable humour they will still indulge themselves in the practice of them for all they are of an equal guilt although indeed of a more spiritual and refined nature For they will strive to weary laws to vilifie and contemn to undervalue and disparage Governours they will permit themselves to be overswayed by spite and malice by wrath and bitterness by envy and emulation by strife and sidings to be drawn aside into censoriousness and evil-speakings into the raising and spreading of uncharitable and envious yea false and slanderous reports they will be forward to magnifie themselves to publish their own praise and to boast of their own actions and attainments but withall to detract and lessen to shame and disparage others Thus will even these men who make the fairest appearance of abominating all impious and ungodly all immoral and debauched actions halt still in their obedience and think to please God not by a perfect and entire but a partial and a maimed service For their Conversion goes but half way not from sin to righteousness but from some sorts of sin to some others All the alteration that their Religion has wrought in them is not a forsaking of sin but an exchange of it a turn from what is more easily left to a more liberal practice of that which they find it hard to part with a remove from grosser and more scandalously fleshly sins to other more spiritual and refined but still as deadly and damnable transgressions And thus by all these instances it appears that when men have got some sins that are close and pleasing such as their temper and complexion their age or condition or way of life has endear'd to them so far as that even for Gods sake they will not part with them their recourse is presently to some more cheap and easie instances of obedience that they may attone for them And the same might be shewn in all other instances of a partial and a maimed service In all things they will obey God no further than their beloved sins will suffer them but as they yield to the Law in other things so must the Law yield to them in these for neither God nor their Sin shall rule alone but the service shall be shared between them and both shall enjoy a divided empire But this is a most damnably delusive and a desperately false pretence For whatsoever fond conceits men who Love and are resolved not to let go their sins may please themselves withall yet God when he comes to judge us will accept of nothing less than an entire obedience All his Laws are established under the pains of death and he will exact all that he has required whatever at that day be our concern in it For he comes not then as a corrupted party to judge for us to make his own Laws bend and bow to serve our Interests and to cancel and disanull all such among them as make against us No he comes as an upright and even Judge to execute all his Laws but not to destroy any he comes to inflict what his Gospel threatens and his sentence will then be what it sayes not what we can bear So that if we have wilfully disobeyed and have not repented whether in one instance or in many we must undergo the punishment of our disobedience For God is a friend to no Vice neither one nor other but he alwayes forbids and he will most severely punish every one And as for all these pretences whether that of our age or our way of life or of our very natural temper and inclination it self there will be no shelter or excuse in any of them to bear us out in any There is no protection to any sin from our Age for no young man may pursue lusts because they are youthful but is bound to fly and avoid them as those things which war against and would destroy his soul 2 Tim. 2.22 Gods Laws make no distinction of young or old but the same Duties are the Rule for both their practices and the same rewards or punishments will be returned indifferently to them both upon their obedience or transgressions There is no justifiable Plea for any sin from our way of life for a constant practice or trade of sin as S t John says can be no mans employment but his who is born of the Devil and must inherit under him 1 John 3.8 But the way of life whereunto God calls us is a way of piety and obedience He has given us his own Laws for the way which we are to walk in and in that alone it is that we can escape death and obtain salvation Nay so far is any thing in the world from sheltring us under the service of any one sin that even that which may have the highest pretence to it of all things else whatsoever viz. our very natural temper and inclination is no excuse to us if it makes us continue in any disobedience If any thing in the world could be a just defence for the practice of any sin surely this must For our Nature is not of our own chusing and therefore its effects ought least of all to be charged on us seeing they least of all proceed from us but are in great degrees determined to our hands before we have any power either to will or to refuse them But such is the purity and strictness of Christ's Gospel that it indispensably requires us to conquer sin not only where it makes no opposition but even where it has the greatest strength and the highest force of all For if our very Nature draw us on to disobey it enjoins us under all our hopes of Heaven not to submit to it but to strive against it so long till we vanquish and subdue it For if we would be judged to be Christ's Disciples at the last Day we must deny our selves Matth. 16.24 As we hope to live we must not perform and fulfil but kill and mortifie those deeds whereto we are hurried on by the temper of our Bodies Rom. 8.13 We must renounce and forsake all sin although never so dear and useful to us before Christ's Gospel will acquit or he will save us If a lust so dear to thee as thy right eye offend thee or cause thee to offend pluck it out says our Saviour and cast it from thee or if one so useful to thee as thy right hand cut it off likewise and cast it from thee and that for no less reason than this Because it is more profitable for thee that one of thy members should in this
accepted for his pardon Whatsoever therefore his sins be if he please to make use of it he is provided of his remedy Repentance shall surely save his Soul and make atonement for all his offences So that of whatsoever nature number or degree his faults have been after once he has thus repented of them they shall never be imputed to him but through the Merits of Christs Death and the Grace of his Gospel they shall be looked upon as if they had never been And thus at last we have seen what that condition is which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us towards our acceptance in the last Judgment what those defects are whereof it allows and what those Salvo's for all sorts of disobedience which it offers For it requires an entire obedience of all our voluntary actions it bears with all our innocently involuntary failings and it admits us to recover our former state when once we have lost it or to persevere in it when we enjoy it by a particular repentance and amendment of all our wilful sins and by our prayers and charity for our involuntary ones This then is the true Test whereby at the last Day we must all be tryed If we have obeyed entirely and have been guilty of no wilful sin or if when we have we did not rest in it but repented and amended it and where there was any repaired the wrong and sought to be reconciled and if we have beg'd pardon for all our involuntary slips and have been diligent in shewing charity and mercy and forgiveness to atone for them then are we innocent in the accounts of the Gospel and when Christ comes to judge us we shall hear the joyful Sentence of Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you Mat. 25.34 This repentance and obedience will bear us out and secure our happiness but less than it nothing in the world will For God will take vengeance saith S t Paul on all that obey not the Gospel of Christ 2 Thess. 1.8 and Except you repent says our Saviour you shall all perish Luk. 13.5 And thus having shewn what condition that is which the Gospel indispensably exacts to our acceptance in the last Judgment what defects are consistent with it and what remedies when once 't is lost shall again restore to it I shall now proceed to that which I proposed in the fourth and last place namely to remove those groundless scruples which perplex the minds of good and safe but yet erring and misguided people concerning it whereof I shall discourse in the remaining Chapters CHAP. IV. Of such groundless Scruples as make safe but weak Minds doubt of their Title to Salvation The CONTENTS Pious minds scrupulous Their condition is safe even then but uncomfortable Several needless grounds of their fears 1. Ineffective desires of evil This represented No man otherwise good shall be condemned for ineffective lusts and thoughts of evil These are considerable either as to their first birth or indulged continuance The first stirrings of lusts after evil things are unavoidable The after-entertainment is by our own indulgence Even these are uncondemning so long as they neither are consented to nor fulfilled being in themselves not deadly under the Gospel but a temptation to deadly and damning sins The way whereby sin wins upon men and the nature and force of temptation To be tempted is no sin which is proved from the nature of temptation from Adams being tempted before he sinned and from Christs being tempted who knew no sin Degrees in temptation or in lusts of evil Some are checked quickly and are not permitted long to parly This happens only in grown men and perfect Christians and that too not in all instances These certainly are not damning Others stay longer and strive and contend with our mind or conscience although at last they are vanquished by it This happens ordinarily to younger Converts and in extraordinary temptations to grown Christians These still are uncondemning which is shewn from Gal. 5.16 17 and from the instance of our Saviour Christ. What lusts and desires of evil are damning They are condemning when they make us consent to a damning sin A distinct account of the several steps to a sinful action A proof of this that from their gaining of our consent in all the after-steps they are mortal Our lusts must be mortified to that degree as to be disabled from carrying us on thus far This is done when men become true Christians The better men are the less difficulty and self-denial do they find in mortification Watchfulness and strife still necessary The danger of indulging to temptations or to lusts and desires of evil This point summed up IN matters of Religion and another World nothing is more ordinarily observable than that those people are wont to have the greatest fears who have the least reason for them For good Christians although they think the best of others are generally very suspicious of themselves They have a deep sense of the danger of sin and a full conviction of the fatal end of disobedience and that makes them think that in a matter wherein it so highly concerns them not to be mistaken they can never be over-jealous of their own hearts or too cautious lest after all those insupportable punishments of sin should fall to be their own portion And this they do especially if in any material point whereupon as to the Sentence of Life or Death the Gospel lays a great stress they are ignorant and erroneous For there are no terrors in the world that are comparable to those of Religion nor have any men upon earth so much reason to be afraid as they who are in danger to fall under them And therefore if there is any thing which will be of great account in the last Judgment or what is all one which they think will be severely accounted for and they either find themselves to be guilty of it or which comes to the same thing fansie that they are they must needs be fearfully perplexed and deprived of all peace and comfort though really they are in the greatest safety 'T is true indeed that in the end they shall be no losers nor shall their mistaken fears ever be fulfilled upon them because at the last Day God will judge them according to his own Rule and not according to their errours and misapprehensions of it so that if they have really done all that which he requires to Heaven and Happiness he will think well of them notwithstanding they think never so hardly of themselves Their errors shall in no wise pervert his Truth for he sees what they are howsoever they may mistake it and if he sees them to be righteous his sentence will follow his own knowledge and he will declare to all the world that they are so This is the security of all good men as it is the eternal terror and astonishment of all hypocrites and sinners that they shall be brought
noble and excellent reward we are in a safe state and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies lest they should eternally miscarry If any person then has used Gods Grace and improved his Talents to this measure he has not been unprofitable and useless but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness He is bound indeed still to advance higher and in every instance of Vertue to improve further but this he is not under the loss of Heaven but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure constancy and evenness with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory but till that can be had this is sufficient to a mans salvation Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere because they have an eye at their own good and a respect to their own safety since they serve God in hopes to be better by him and out of a fear should they disobey of suffering evil from him They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires viz. With all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned and that wilfully and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10.26 These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace and make sad their hearts and some others of like nature But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above such as I hope may satisfie any reasonable man who is capable to read and to consider of them and thither I refer the Reader not thinking fit here to repeat them And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place how plainly groundless those fears are which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and that as I take it so particularly that no man who will be at the pains to read and consider of it can overlook or mistake it what those defects are which it bears and dispenseth with what those remedies and means of reconciliation are which it has provided for us and when all these are taken care for how groundless all those other scruples are which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state and their title to eternal salvation And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel he will pronounce upon every man according to his works If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment and shall never come into Condemnation Nay if he has been a damnable offender and has willfully transgressed either in one instance or in many in frequent repetitions of his sin or in few yet if he repent of it before death seize him and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment he is safe still For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience observing everything which he sees to be his duty and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon and if he die in it he shall be saved All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men shall be abated all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed in that shall he live If then we have an honest heart and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us we may meet Death with a good Courage and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations For if we have an honest and a tender heart whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences our own Souls will be our Remembrancers They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World and after we are taken out of it and brought to Judgment Mens Consciences says the Apostle shall accuse or excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel Rom. 2.15 Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty having come to call evil good and good evil then their Consciences having no further sense of sin will have no accusations upon it But if they really believe the Gospel and study to know their duty and desire to observe it and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful whilst thus their heart is soft and their Conscience tender they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes but that their own hearts will both check them before and smite them afterwards They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms which will scourge and awake them so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments and we know
regard them Neither can it be collected beforehand from any fixt rule or reason seeing it observes none And what neither our greatest wisdom can foretel nor our exactest care prevent it is wholly to no purpose to make a matter of our study and enquiry But as for the Everlasting happiness or misery of our Souls and Bodies in the other Life and at the Resurrection they are not left at random nor fall out by accident but are dispensed by a wise hand and according to a fixt and established rule For it is God who distributes them and this distribution is in Judgment and the procedure in that is by Laws and those laws are unalterably fixt for us and most plainly declared and published to us in the Gospel So that now it is no impossible no nor extream difficult thing for us to understand which shall be our own state in the next world For the laws are well known proclaimed daily to every ear by a whole order of men set apart for that purpose their sence and meaning is obvious to any common understanding and the Judgment according to them at that day will be true and faithful God will Absolve all those whom his Gospel acquits but Condemn every man whom it accuses There will be no perverting of Justice through fear or favour no Sentence passed through partiality or ill will but a Tryal every way unbyassed and uncorrupt where Every one shall receive according to the things done in the body 2 Cor. 5.10 And Judgment shall pass upon all men according to their works Rom. 2.6 And thus as the belief of the two former Articles the immortal state either of Bliss or Misery for our Souls and the Resurrection of our Bodies will inflame us with restless desires so if we seriously believe it will this third Article of the great and general Judgment possess us with sure hopes of being satisfyed in this great enquiry which of the two States will fall to our own share And as this belief of the last Judgment will be the most effectual means to encourage so will it be withal the surest to guide our Enquiries after it It chalks us out a method for our search and directs us to the readiest course for satisfaction For if the happiness and misery of the next world is to be dispensed to every man for a reward or punishment according to the direction of those Laws which promise or threaten them then have we nothing more to do in this enquiry but to examine well what those laws are what obedience they require what allowances and mitigations they will bear and what lot and condition they assign us For in that day we shall be look'd upon to be what they declare us and be doom'd to that state which they pronounce for us What they speak to us all now that the Judge of all the world will pronounce upon us all then their sentence shall be his and what they denounce he will execute He will judge us by no other measure but his own Laws those very Laws which he has taken so much care to proclaim to us and continually to press upon us which he has put into every one of our hands and made to be sounding daily in our ears the laws and sanctions of the Gospel Our blessed Saviour Christ the Judge himself has told us this long ago The word that I have spoken the same shall judge men at the last day Joh. 12.48 And his great Apostle Paul has again confirmed it Rom. 2. God shall judge the world at that day according to my Gospel vers 16. If we perform what those Laws peremptorily require they now already declare us blessed and such at the last day will Christ pronounce us But if by sinning against them we fall short of it they denounce nothing but everlasting woes and miseries and those he will execute For he tells us plainly that when he shall come to judgment in the Glory of his Father with his holy Angels he will reward every man according to his works Mat. 16.27 To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and immortality he will give eternal life Rom. 2.7 But to them who obey not the Truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish and that upon every man whether he be Jew or Gentile vers 8 9. For all this shall be acted in the greatest integrity without preferring one before an other It is only the difference in mens works which shall difference their conditions but they who have been equal in their sins shall be equal also in their sufferings For at the appearance of Jesus Christ God as S t Peter tells us without any respect of persons judges according to every mans work 1 Pet. 1.7.17 The way then whereby to satisfie our selves in this great matter is this To look well into the Gospel there to learn what we should be and into our own hearts and lives there to see what indeed we are and thence to conclude what in the next world whether in a state of Life or Death we shall be And to shew this to every man and to let him see now beforehand how he stands prepared for the next world and whether if he should be called away presently to the Bar of that Judgment he would be everlastingly acquitted or condemned in it is my present business and design It is to let us see our Eternal Condition before we enter on it and to make it evident to every man who is both capable and willing to be instructed what shall be his endless doom of Life or Death before the Judge pronounce it And since the Rule of that Court whereby we must all be tryed and which must measure out to us either Life or Death is as we have seen none other than the Gospel of our Judge and Saviour Jesus Christ that I may manage this enquiry with the greater light and clearness I will proceed in this method First I will enquire What is that condition of our happiness or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts Secondly What are its mitigations and allowances those defects which it pardons and bears with And when at any time we fall short of this condition and thereby forfeit all right and title to that happiness and pardon which is promised to us upon it Then Thirdly What are those remedies and means of recovery which it points us out for restoring our selves again unto a state of Grace and Favour and whereupon we shall be reconciled And having by this means discovered what in the great and general judgment shall really and truly determine our last estate what shall be connived at in it and when once 't is lost what shall restore to it I shall in the Fourth and last place Remove those groundless doubts and scruples which perplex the minds of good and safe but yet erring and misguided people concerniâ—â— it And having in this manner cleared up all thâ—se
I forsook not thy Commandments vers 87. and many now still are my persecutors and enemies yet do I not decline from thy testimonies vers 157. The Holy Apostles of our Saviour conflicted with more difficulties and distress persecutions and sufferings for the Religion and Obedience of their Lord than any men I think ever did or it may be ever will do I think sayes S t Paul that God hath set forth us Apostles last as it were men appointed to the bloodiest which is usually the last scene of all even to death it self For we are exposed to slaughter as men were in the tragical sports of that time upon a publick theatre being made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men From the first entrance on our office even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffetted and have no certain dwelling place being made as the very filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things from the first to this day 1 Cor. 4.9 11 13. If any straits could authorize an evil action or if any pressures could justifie a disobedient escape sure these would But they knew too well the nature of their Religion ever to dream of a liberty to sin that they might avoid persecution and they were too resolutely addicted to it ever to attempt it For neither the extremity of their sufferings nor the desperateness of their danger could ever make them transgress their duty or go beyond the Laws of their Religion to lessen or prevent them But they obeyed bravely and entirely even in the highest strains even in the most ungratefull instances even in those matters wherein if any where the malice and violence of their enemies would provoke or rather force them to disobey For in the midst of all these pressures sayes S t Paul being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we do nothing worse than entreat and pray for our defamers 1 Cor. 4.12 13. In patience in afflictions in necessities in distresses in stripes in imprisonments in popular tumults in manual labours in all these things and in the throng and distraction of all our sorrows we approve our selves as the true obedient Servants and faithfull Ministers of God shewing that not by any selfish disobedient politick shifts but by pureness of conversation by long-suffering by kindness even to our very enemies in a word by the most excellent of all gifts and the Epitome of all Duty Charity or love unfeigned 2 Cor. 6.3 4 5. Religion then can never give protection to any disobedience nor our concern and zeal for God be pleaded with any shew of modesty or reason in vindication of our transgressions of any of his Laws or Precepts For Religion needs no defence from times of suffering it can live in them it is improved by them nay some of its most glorious parts and eminent instances are never shown in any lustre but when we fall under them and where it ought to be defended the breach of Laws is in no wise a fit instrument for its advancement and protection For God cannot be honoured nor Religion advanced by disobedience Obedience is so essential and super-eminent a part of its Nature and so preferable to any idle profession or ineffective belief that to transgress Christian Laws for the maintenance of an undisturbed liberty in professing Christian opinions were not to strengthen and preserve but dangerously to wound if not wholly to destroy it This disobedience to Christian Laws that we may avoid suffering for the profession of Christian Doctrines is such as the very temper of the Gospel which is made up in great part of passive Precepts and a suffering Religion plainly contradicts such as its Laws and Precepts strictly forbid such as Christ our Lord and Judg will certainly and most severely punish and such as the most persecuted religious men could never be provoked or forced into either by the greatness of their fears or by the violence of their pains although the most exquisite that could be invented by the most searching wits and keenest malice in the world So that whensoever men sin to avoid suffering and disobey the Laws of Religion to preserve the profession of it from persecution it is not Religion but their Lusts not their love of God but their love of their own selves which makes them disobedient Religion will upon no accounts justifie their transgressions but utterly condemns them and unless their repentance prevents it God at the last Day will endlesly punish and avenge for them But as for Religion in that narrow sense wherein some understand it i. e. the use of religious Ordinances and the profession and belief of religious Opinions if men would shew their care and concern to preserve the free liberty and unpersecuted use of that so as both God and all good men should honour and commend them let them shew it in a pious and discreet management Which they will justly be thought to do if they keep within their own sphere and use even there no sinful and disobedient means and are zealous in the first place for the practice and preservation of religious Laws and next to that for religious Ordinances and Opinions 1. In shewing their care to preserve the free liberty and unpersecuted use of religious Ordinances and Professions they must act within their own sphere We private Christians must not prescribe methods of preserving it to publick Magistrates or censure their proceedings and speak irreverently of their persons and administrations when they determine otherwise than we had thought fitting We must not without consent and approbation of Authority combine in Bodies and associate in solemn Leagues Bonds and Covenants to be aiding and assisting to each other with our Persons Armes and Purses to protect it against all Opposers For these are such things as are no part of our business but God has hedged them in and entrusted them in other hands He has delegated that power to Kings and Governours to take care of the common good and to judge of publick expedience He has put the sword into the Magistrates hands and has authorized him and him only to have power of life and death and to decree and establish peace and war And if any man without his order shall take the Sword and use it against his Brother he may read his Sentence which is writ in plain words already They that take the sword as every man doth when Authority doth not allow or reach it out to him shall perish by the sword Matth. 26.52 These means then and any others which God has appropriated to the care and entrusted in the hands of other men can be no lawful expressions of our care but an unlawful intruding into anothers Office a sinful use of what is put out of ours and committed to an others management Our exercise and use of them is a proud usurpation an unpeaceable encroachment a busie medling in other mens
with but not of others for that which gets an allowance for the breach of one would procure a favourable sentence for the like violation of all the rest That then which makes the difference of punishable and unpunishable in mens failings is not to be sought for in Christs Laws seeing the punishment of every one of them is the same but in their own actions For some sins shall be born with not for that they are against a Law whereto no penalty is annexed there being none such in all Christs Gospel but for that they are such imperfect actions as the punishing Law which they are against will not take hold of Every Law of Christ threatens death but these allowed offences are not of the number of those actions which are threatned by it For we must take notice that those works of ours whereon Christ's Laws lay restraint and whereto they as all other just Laws in the World threaten punishment are our voluntary and chosen actions They bind us up in all those performances which are placed in our own free power and come from the choice of our own will and they denounce woes to us if in them we go beyond those bounds which they have set us So that in all our free and chosen actions we must take care to do what the Law requires and to keep back from what it forbids and we are sure to suffer if we neglect it For it is among these actions of choice where the Law reigns on which it lays Commands and whereto it threatens punishment If we chuse and do what is commanded then have we a right to the promised reward and if we chuse to do what is forbidden then are we guilty and obnoxious to the punishment denounced But as for other actions which flow not from our own choice of which sort are all our pardonable and allow'd infirmities they fall not under the strict force of the Law either in the guidance of its Command or in the sting of its punishment so that at the last Day it will not be judged to have been either broken or kept by them That I may fully clear up this whereupon so much of that which I shall say under this Head depends I will show concerning it these two things 1. That all things whatsoever which are either good or evil and a fit matter of reward or punishment are made such by a Law 2. That all our actions are not governed by God's Laws so as to be strictly and directly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen 1. I say All things whatsoever which are either good or evil rewardable or punishable are made so by some Law For good and evil vertue and vice obedience and sin which are only so many different Names for the same thing have all relation to a Commandment Vertue and obedience is the performance as vice and sin is the transgression of it Where there is no Law saith the Apostle there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 And no man sins as saith another Apostle but he that transgresseth the Law for sin is the transgression of the Law 1 John 3.4 And as Law is the measure of sin and Duty so is it likewise of reward and punishment For God never afflicts and torments the Children of men out of the inclination of his Nature but only out of the necessity of Government He is the Ruler of the World and the Lord of men and therefore he must maintain his own Laws and punish the evil Doers But no man is ever punished without an offence and he must do evil before he suffer it He undergoes nothing but that which is his own choice for he chose rather to incurr the penalty than to perform the Commandment He feels no more than the Law denounced for God the Judg executes nothing but what the Law threatens he punishes according to it but not without it The Law doth always make a penalty due to an Offender before he either can or doth exact it Thus are all things which are either good or evil rewardable or punishable made such by a Law But then 2. As for our actions all of them are not governed by God's Law so as to be strictly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen And this being a a Point whereof I shall make so much use in all that follows I will spend the more time in clearing of it up as I hope beyond all question by showing the truth of it 1. From the clear reason of the thing it self 2. From the plain declarations of the Scripture concerning it 1. I say That only our voluntary and chosen actions are under the restraint of Laws and either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them is plain from the great and convincing reason of the thing it self For let us consider First The very nature of a Law and we shall find that in all those actions whereon it is imposed it supposes them who exert them to have a power of choice and a free liberty of making them either a piece of service to it or a transgression of it For all Law is a Bond or a Tye which lays restraint upon us and induces Obligation So that in all those actions whereupon the restraint is laid we are necessarily supposed to be free before it comes For it is an utter absurdity to bind any thing by a Law which is before necessitated by its very Nature Who would ever be so vain and foolish as to give a Law to a Stone that it should not speak or to a Tree that it should not walk or to the Fire that it should not chill and freeze him There can be no place for nor need of an Obligation where there is no choice and liberty For it is only where things have a power to act on both sides that there is room for a Law to oblige and tye them up to one And for this reason it is that among all that variety of Creatures which inhabit in this lower World men alone are capable of Laws because no Creature besides is endowed with freedom of will and liberty of choice which is to be bound up and restrained by them Nay even in men themselves those actions and tempers which are not subject to their own choice nor under the power of their own wills are no fit matter of a Law nor fall under the force of a Commandment For who can ever be so unreasonable and void of all sence as to command a man that he should not be born rich or poor base or noble that he should not be sick and weak hungry and thirsty sleepy or weary No since none of these instances is in his own choice or under the free disposal of his own will in none of them is he capable of an Obligation Seeing then that it is of the nature
For Christ need never have come into the World for that end since the Law had rendred us accursed and miserable enough already But he came on a quite contrary Errand to be the Minister of Life and Pardon and not to seal us up to eternal Death upon the first wilful transgression but to procure for us remission of all our deadly and damning sins and to restore us out of a state of Enmity and Death to a state of Mercy and Reconciliation He came to find out a remedy for all our evils and to prescribe us a way of recovering our selves when we had fallen by any sin so that although none of us all have lived free from it yet in the event sin shall not be our ruine And that remedy which God has provided us for this purpose is Repentance He doth not abandon us upon the commission of every sin but he is heartily desirous that we should repent of it and when we do so he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness to forgive it He is heartily desirous I say that whensoever we commit any sin we should repent of it If we dare take his own word he tells us as he lives that he doth not delight in the death of any sinner but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn you turn you as he goes on from your evil ways for why will you dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 And this all the World experience by him in his long-suffering and forbearance with them For he doth not exact the punishment so soon as we have incurred it but expects long to see if we will return and repent that then he may with honour pardon and remit it this being as S t Paul assures us the end of his forbearance and long-suffering to lead us to repentance Rom. 2.4 And what S t Paul says that we all experience For during all that time wherein he bears with us how restless and unwearied earnest and affectionate are his endeavours for this purpose He admonishes us of our faults by his Word and by his Ministers he invites us to return by his Love and by his Promises he moves us to bethink our selves by his Spirit and by his Providences and if we are stubborn and not to be thus gently won by these methods of mildness he seeks to reclaim us by a blessed and a most affectionate force and violence For he corrects us with his Rod and visits us in chastisement and never ceases to try all means of reducing us to a sense of our sin and repentance till we are become plainly incorrigible and utterly rebellious and so fit for nothing but to be swallowed up of ruine And yet even then his desire of reclaiming us is so strong and his love so affectionate that he scarce knows how to give us over How shall I give thee up saith he O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel Hos. 11.8 And when we do repent I say he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness most graciously to forgive us This was the Doctrine of the Prophets Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord says Isaiah for he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55.7 If the wicked man says God by Ezekiel will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye All his transgressions which he hath formerly committed shall not be mentioned unto him but in his righteousness that he hath done since he shall live For have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that he should turn from his ways and live Ezek. 18 21 22 23. This iâ— the great Doctrine of the Gospel which is a Covenant of remission of sins upon Repentance Repentance is its great Article and fundamental Truth and is therefore called by S t Paul the Foundation of Repentance Heb. 6.1 For that which was taught to all the World in all the degrees of Publication of the Gospel was that now God called all men to repent and that he would forgive them all their sins upon their true repentance S t John the Baptist who was Christs Herald and Fore-runner at his entrance upon that work begins with it John says S t Luke in all the Country about Jordan came preaching the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 Our Lord and Saviour Christ himself when he comes after to proclaim his own Gospel goes on with it Jesus began to preach says S t Matthew and to say Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand Mat. 4.17 And when he left the World the Commission which he gives to his Apostles is to proceed on still in the Promulgation of it to all the World as he had done to the people of the Jews For at the last time of his being with them just before his Ascension into Heaven when as S t Matthew tells us he commissioned them to preach to all mankind those instructions which he gave to them S t Luke informs us were that repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all Nations in his Name beginning at Jerusalem Luk. 24.47 This was the chief thing which they had in Commission and the summ and substance of their Embassy For that Ministry which was committed to them was a Ministry of reconciling God and men by this means as St. Paul says or a Ministry of Reconciliation so that they were Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech men by them and they as Christs Deputies who is the prime Mediator did pray them in his stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.19.20 And when the Apostles came to execute their Orders the publishing of this was all their care and practice For they all of them went about preaching in all places and to all persons repentance for the remission of sins St. Peter in his first Sermon thus exhorts the people Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins Act. 2.38 and so again Act. 3. Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out v. 19. And the same he proclaims more generally in his second Epistle assuring all Christians that the Lord is not willing that any man should perish but that all should come to repentance which is sure to prevent it 2 Pet. 3.9 St. Paul preaches to the Athenians that now God had commanded all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 And St. John assures us that by virtue of that Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with us in Christs Blood if with repenting hearts we confess our sins he is faithful to his word and just to his promise to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from the guilt and stain of all unrighteousness of
himself so doth he instruct Timothy that he should do likewise For he tells him that the way whereby the man of God ought to deal with sinners even those of the worst sort who are not only subject but enslaved to it is not peremptorily to damn and seal them up fast unto destruction but in great meekness to endeavour to reclaim them that by recovering them to repentance he may restore them again to life and pardon The man of God says he must in meekness instruct even the refractory and contumacious or those that oppose themselves against him if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2.25 26. And to name no more instances of this nature but to summ up all in one even those great and enormous wilful sinners whose offences are so hainous as to make them fit to be expelled the society of Christians are not yet in their very Excommunication shut up irrecoverably under the pains of Hell but quite contrary are endeavoured by this very means to be reduced to repentance and thereby to pardon and acceptance Excommunication it self being as St. Paul says for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5.5 And the Power of the Keys in remitting or retaining sins that is in the excommunicating or absolving of offenders is intrusted with the Ministers of Christs Church for the edification of the excommunicated sinners themselves and not for their destruction 2 Cor. 10.8 and chap. 13.10 And by all this we see that the Grace of Christs Gospel is a grace of repentance and remission of sins all the way both before Baptism and also after it In all periods from the beginning to the end it is an instrument of pardon and a means of peace or a word and ministry as St. Paul says of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.19 If we break our Baptismal vows which are the condition of the Covenant once and thereby forfeit all our Right to Happiness it gives us liberty to repeat them For we have the freedom both in our private and our publick prayers to renew all our good resolutions and to make God new promises and to undertake for the performance of that wherein we have wilfully failed by new engagements Nay it doth not only allow that we may thus renew the Covenant but it requires that we should it has appointed an Ordinance the Eucharist or Lords Supper I mean for this very purpose For the Bread and Wine which we eat and drink there our Saviour tells us is a Federal form the New Covenant or according to the manner of the Eastern Nations who ratified their Covenants by eating and drinking together the re-entring or confirming of that Covenant which was at first sealed and confirmed in his Blood This says he is the New Testament or Covenant in my blood drink ye all of it and so according to the known Rite confirm this Covenant with God by it Luk. 22.20 Mat. 22.27 And this he has not only allowed but injoyned to all his Disciples Do this says he in remembrance of me And that not only at one time as it is with Baptism but at all times during your whole lives for in this manner of a Federal eating and drinking of this Bread and Wine you must shew forth the Lords death always even till he come again the second time i. e. unto the worlds end 1 Cor. 11.24 25 26. Forgiveness of sins then upon repentance is a Grace which is begun in Baptism and ever after continued being repeated in every Prayer and sealed in every Sacrament to the end of our lives So that no wilful sin can damn us if we repent of it but the damned accursed sinner is only he who lives and dyes impenitent Insomuch as that very sin for which St. Paul says there is no benefit from Christs Death nor any help of Sacrifice under the Gospel is therefore excluded from all Grace of pardon because it is from all possibility of repentance For therein it is that the irrecoverableness of those lost sinners consists It is impossible says he to renew them to repentance Heb. 6.6 Thus then we see that Christs Gospel has afforded us a remedy even for our wilful sins whether they be committed before Baptism or after it at one time or at another at all without exception so that although sometimes we do fall under them yet we shall not be eternally condemned for them Let us but repent particularly therefore and amend it and whatever sin we have wilfully been guilty of our work is done For our repentance shall set us straight and our reformation will make us innocent and if we are careful to do so no more our offence will be looked upon as if it never had been done at all But against this pardonableness of our wilful sins after our belief of the Gospel and Baptism into the Christian Faith some perhaps may be ready to object two places from St. Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews wherein he may seem to teach us a more rigorous and severe Lesson In the 10 th Chapter he lays down this as a great Truth If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge or open belief and acknowledgment of the truth of Christs Gospel there remains no more benefit to us from Christs sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall consume the adversaries v. 26 27. And in the 6 th Chapter to the eternal Terror of all willing and wilful Back-sliders he speaks thus to the same purpose It is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God if after all this they shall fall away to be again recovered or for any of us to renew them to repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame v. 4 5 6. But now if our wilful sins after Baptism and belief of the Gospel be thus desperate and utterly excluded from all hopes of cure and benefit of Expiation by Christs Sacrifice as the Apostle in these places seems to intimate how can the Gospel be truly called a Ministration of Reconciliation Grace and Pardon towards all sorts of wilful sins To take off all this difficulty I will answer to the places severally that all those good minds which are wont to be perplexed by them may be more perfectly relieved by a particular and distinct understanding of them First then to begin with that the words of St. Paul in the 10 th Chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews are these Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering Not forsaking the assembling of
of none but what we have repented of we have just reason to take a good heart to our selves and to wait for death in hopeful expectations If our own hearts condemn us not says Saint John then have we confidence towards God 1 John 3.21 There is no sin that will damn us but a wilful one and when we sin wilfully if our heart is soft and honest we sin willingly and against our Conscience our own heart sees and observes it before and will keep us in mind of it after we have committed it So that if any man has a vertuous and a tender heart a heart that is truly dâ—sirous to obey obey God and afraid in any thing to offend him when his Conscience is silent he may justly conclude that his Condition is safe for if it doth not condemn him God never will An honest mans heart I say must condemn him before he have sufficient reason to condemn himself And that too not for every idle word or every fruitless lust or every dulness of spirit and distraction in prayer and coldness in devotion or such other mistaken marks whereby too many are wont to judge of their title to salvation No Heaven and Hell are not made to depend upon these things but although a man be guilty of them he may be eternally happy notwithstanding them But that accusation of his Conscience which may give an honest man just reason to condemn himself must be an accusation for a wilful breach or deliberate transgression of some particular Law of Sobriety Piety Justice Charity Peaceableness it must accuse him of an unrepented breach of some of those Laws above mentioned which God has plainly made the terms of life and the condition of salvation And the accusation for the breach of these Laws must be particular and express not general and roving For some are of so suspicious and timorous a temper that they are still suspecting and condemning of themselves when they know not for what reason They will indict themselves as men that have sinned greatly but they cannot shew wherein they judge of themselves not from any reason or experience but at a venture and by chance they speak not so truly their opinions as their fears not what their understandings see and discern but what their melancholy suggests to them For ask them as to any one Particular of the Laws of God and run them all over and their Consciences cannot charge them with any wilful which is withal an unrepented transgression of it But let them overlook all Particulars and pass a judgment of themselves only in general when they do not judge from particular instances which are true evidence but only from groundless and small presumptions and then they pass a hard sentence upon themselves and conclude that their sins are very great and their condition dangerous But no man shall be sentenced at the last Day for Notions and Generalities but it is our particular sins which must then condemn us For God's Laws bind us all in single actions and if our own Consciences cannot condemn us for any one wilful which is withal an unrepented action God will not condemn us for them altogether If our own heart therefore doth not accuse us for the particular wilful and unrepented breaches of some or other of those Laws above mentioned which God has made the indispensable condition of our acceptance we are secure as to the next World and may comfortably hope to be acquitted in the last Judgment Being conscious of no wilful sin but what we have repented of and by mercy and forgiveness of other men and our prayers to God begging pardon for our involuntary sins we shall have nothing that will lye heavy upon us at the last Day but may go out of the World with ease and dye in comfort Our departure hence may be in peace because our appearance at Gods Tribunal shall surely be in safety For we shall have no worse charged upon us there than we are able here to charge upon our selves but leaving this World in a good Conscience we shall be sentenced in the next to a glorious reward and bid to enter into our Masters joy there to live with our Lord for ever and ever Amen Soli Deo Gloria FINIS * 1 Joh. 2 17-29 ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clâ—m Ro. 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 30. a Gal. 3.19 b Matt 1.21 c Jam. 2.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. Ep. 1. ad Cor. c. 31. e Quid est â—ide liter Christo credere â— est fideliter Dei mandata servare Salvian de Gub. l. 3. p. 67. Ed. Oxon. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 10. f Matt. 25.34 35 3â— c. g Heb. 1.17 19. h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrought to his works or to make him work i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k Neâ— Christianus esse videtur qui Christiani nominis opus non agit Salvian de Gub. l 4. p. Ed. Ox. 90. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Noah's preaching Righteousness and Repentance before the flood 2 Pet. 2.5 and 1 Pet. 3.20 is thus expessed by St. Clement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 9. c Prophetarum Filii And in the like sence among the Gentiles Poetarum Filii d Jer. 8.6 So St. Clement uses the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promiscuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what in the Septuagint whom he follows in Citations is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ezek. 33.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he giving the sence though not the words according to the Apostolical usage expresses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 7.8 And agreeably to this the compilers of our Liturgy in the Sentences before Morning Service in our Old Common Prayer Books translate Matt. 3.2 Repent ye for the Kingdom of God is at hand thus Amend your lives for the Kingdom c. As on the other side they expound Ezek. 18.21 If the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right c. thus At what time soever a sinner repenteth c. Quid planius quà m quod voluntas pro facto reputâ—tur ubi factum exclâ—dic necessitas nisi forte putetur in malo quà m in bono efficacior inveniri voluntas apud Deum qui charitas est promptioresset ad ulciscendum quam ad remunerandum misericors miserator Dominus Bernard Ep. ad Hugonem de Sancto Victore quae est Ep. 77. p. op 1458. f Quid dicam nescio quid promittam penitus ignoro revocare ab inquisitione ultimi remedii periclitantes durum impium spondere autem aliquid in tam sera cautione temerarium Salv. de Avaritia l. 1. p. 363. Ed. Oxon. a Levit. 26.40.42 b Novum monstri genus â—adem