miliation will be accepted, and our holy purposes and pious resolutions shall be accounted for; that is, these being the first steps and addresses to that part of repentance which consists in the abolition of sins, shall be accepted so far as to procure so much of the pardon, to do so much of the work of restitution, that God will admit the returning man to a farther degree of emendation, to a nearer possibility of working out his salvation. But then, if this sorrow, and confession, and these strong purposes begin then when our life is declined towards the west, and is now ready to set in darkness and a dismal night; because of themselves they could but procure an admission to repentance, not at all to pardon and plenary absolution, by showing that on our death-bed these are too late and ineffectual, they call upon us to begin betimes, when these imperfect acts may be consummate and perfect, in the actual performing those parts of holy life, to which they were ordained in the nature of the thing, and the purposes of God. 4. Lastly, suppose all this to be done, and that by a long course of strictness and severity, mortification and circumspection, we have overcome all our vicious and baser habits, contracted and grown upon us like the ulcers and evils of a long surfeit, and that we are clean and swept; suppose that he hath wept and fasted, prayed and vowed to excellent purposes; yet all this is but the one half of repentance (so infinitely mistaken is the world, to think any thing to be enough to make up repentance): but to renew us, and restore us to the favour of God, there is required far more than what hath been yet accounted for. See it in the Second of St. Peter, chap, i. vers. 4, 5. "Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust and besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, and so on, to godliness, to brotherly kindness, and to charity these things must be in you and abound." This is the sum total of repentance: we must not only have overcome sin, but we must after great diligence have acquired the habits of all those Christian graces, which are necessary in the transaction of our affairs in all relations to God and our neighbour, and our own persons. It is not enough to say, "Lord, I thank thee, I am no extortioner, no : adulterer, not as this publican;" all the reward of such a penitent is, that when he hath escaped the corruption of the world, he hath also escaped those heavy judgments which threatened his ruin. 'Nec furtum feci, nec fugi,' si mihi dicat Servus: Habes pretium; loris non ureris,' aio; Non hominem occidi :'- Non pasces in cruce corvos.' "If a servant have not robbed his master, nor offered to fly from his bondage, he shall escape the 'furca,' his flesh shall not be exposed to birds or fishes;" but this is but the reward of innocent slaves. It may be, we have escaped the rod of the exterminating angel, when our sins are crucified; but we shall never enter into the joy of the Lord,' unless after we have put off the old man with his affections and lusts,' we also put on the new man in righteousness and holiness of life.'t And this we are taught in most plain doctrine by St. Paul; "Let us lay aside the weight that doth so easily beset us;" that is the one half: and then it follows, "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us." These are the fruits meet for repentance,' spoken of by St. John Baptist; that is, when we renew our first undertaking in baptism, and return to our courses of innocence. Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens, Insanientis dum sapientiæ Consultus erro, nunc retrorsum Vela dare, atque iterare cursus The sense of which words is well given us by St. John; "Remember whence thou art fallen; repent, and do thy first works." For all our hopes of heaven rely upon that covenant, which God made with us in baptism; which is, "That being redeemed from our vain conversation, we should serve him in holiness and righteousness all our days." Now when any of us hath prevaricated our part of the covenant, we must return to that state, and redeem the intermedial time spent in sin, by our doubled industry in the ways of grace: we must be reduced to our first estate, and make some proportionable returns of duty for our sad omissions, and great violations of our baptismal vow. For God having made no covenant with us but that which is consigned in baptism; in the same proHor. cp. 1. 16. 46. ↑ Heb. xii. 1. Hor. Od. 1, 34. 2. § Revel. ii. portion in which we retain or return to that, in the same we are to expect the pardon of our sins, and all the other promises evangelical; but no otherwise, unless we can show a new gospel, or be baptized again by God's appointment. He, therefore, that by a long habit, by a state and continued course of sin, hath gone so far from his baptismal purity, as that he hath nothing of the Christian left upon him but his name; that man hath much to do to make his garments clean, to purify his soul, to take off all the stains of sin, that his spirit may be presented pure to the eyes of God, who beholds no impurity. It is not an easy thing to cure a longcontracted habit of sin. Let any intemperate person but try in his own instance of drunkenness; or the swearer, in the sweetening his unwholesome language; but then so to command his tongue that he never swear, but that his speech be prudent, pious, and apt to edify the hearer, or in some sense to glorify God; or to become temperate, to have got a habit of sobriety, or chastity, or humility, is the work of a life. And if we do but consider that he that lives well from his younger years, or takes up at the end of his youthful heats, and enters into the courses of a sober life early, diligently, and vigorously, shall find himself, after the studies and labours of twenty or thirty years' piety, but a very imperfect person, many degrees of pride left unrooted up, many inroads of intemperance or beginnings of excess, much indevotion and backwardness in religion, many temptations to contest against, and some infirmities which he shall never say he hath mastered; we shall find the work of a holy life is not to be deferred till our days are almost done, till our strengths are decayed, our spirits are weak, and our lust strong, our habits confirmed, and our longings after sin many and impotent: for what is very hard to be done, and is always done imperfectly, when there is length of time, and a less work to do, and more abilities to do it withal; when the time is short, and almost expired, and the work made difficult and vast, and the strengths weaker, and the faculties are disabled, will seem little less than absolutely impossible. I shall end this general consideration with the question of the Apostle; "If the righteous scarcely be saved," if it be so difficult to overcome our sins, and obtain virtuous habits; difficult, I say, to a righteous, a sober, and well-living person," where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" what shall become of him, who, by his evil life, hath not only removed himself from the affections, but even from the possibilities of virtue?— He that hath lived in sin, will die in sorrow. SERMON VI. PART II. BUT I shall pursue this great and necessary truth, First, by showing what parts and ingredients of repentance are assigned, when it is described in Holy Scripture: Secondly, by showing the necessities, the absolute necessities, of a holy life, and what it means in Scripture to live holily:' Thirdly, by considering what directions or intimations we have concerning the last time of beginning to repent; and what is the longest period that any man may venture with safety. And in the prosecution of these particulars, we shall remove the objections, those aprons of fig-leaves, which men use for their shelter to palliate their sin, and to hide themselves from that from which no rocks or mountains shall protect them, though they fall upon them; that is, the wrath of God. First, That repentance is not only an abolition and extinction of the body of sin, a bringing it to the altar, and slaying it before God and all the people; but that we must also χρυσὸν κέρασι περιχεύειν, 6 mingle gold and rich presents, the oblation of good works and holy habits with the sacrifice, I have already proved: but now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described, we shall find it to be the one-half of all that which God requires of Christians. Faith and repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God; repentance sacrifices the whole will: that gives the knowing; this gives up all the desiring faculties: that makes us disciples; this makes us servants of the holy Jesus. Nothing else was preached by the Apostles, nothing was enjoined as the duty of man, nothing else did build up the body of Christian religion. So that as faith contains all that knowledge, which is necessary to salvation; so repentance comprehends in it all the whole practice and working duty of a returning Christian. And this was the sum total of all that St. Paul preached to the Gentiles, when, in his farewell-sermon to the bishops and priests of Ephesus, he professed that he kept back nothing that was profitable" to them; and yet it was all nothing but this, repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.' So that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ and repents towards God, must make his accounts according to this standard, that is, to believe all that Christ taught him, and to do all that Christ commanded. And this is remarked in St. Paul's catechism,+ where he gives a more particular catalogue of fundamentals: he reckons nothing but sacraments and faith; of which he enumerates two principal articles, "resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment." Whatsoever is practical, all the whole duty of man, the practice of all obedience, is called repentance from dead works:' which, if we observe the singularity of the phrase, does not mean 'sorrow;' for sorrow from dead works, is not sense; but it must mean mutationem status,' a conversion from dead works, which (as in all motions) supposes two terms; from dead works to living works; from the death of sin,' to the life of righteousness.' I will add but two places more, out of each Testament one; in which, I suppose, you may see every lineament of this great duty described, that you may no longer mistake a grasshopper for an eagle; sorrow and holy purposes, for the entire duty of repentance. In Ezekiel, xviii. 21. you shall find it thus described: "But if the wicked 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 die." Or, as it is more fully described in Ezekiel, xxxiii. 14. "When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he hath robbed, walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die." Here only is the condition of pardon; to leave all your sins, to keep all God's statutes, to walk in them, to abide, to proceed, and make progress in them; and this, without the interruption by a deadly sin,-without committing iniquity, to make restitution of all the wrongs he hath † Heb. vi. 1. • Acts xx. 21. |