with due thoughtfulness and application of mind it may give you both a Right Notion and Understanding of it, so as to free you from all dangerous and mischievous Mitakes about it, and that it will convey fo much Warmth as well as Light to your thoughts as may by the Grace of God very much help to quicken and excite you to a Speedy and thorough Repentance, and to a Holy and Good Life.

As it will in fome measure give you clear thoughts of Religion in all the parts of it, which fome who have a strong fence yet have dark and confufed apprehenfions about, and will enable you to make a right Judgment of your felves and Spiritual ftate by evident and obvious and certain marks, so I dare Say that no Man who takes the whole force of it into his mind, and duly confiders, and feriously attends to all the thoughts that it will fuggeft to him, will ever live in his fins, or continue to be a wicked Man.

One of the great Reasons that makes Men So even beyond Atheism and Infidelity it Self for they being contrary to the natural fenfe of our minds, prevail not upon so many as Superftition, Falfe and corrupt Religion) is the perverting Christianity and corrupting the Gafpel by Doctrines of Loofe

Loofenefs and Licentiousness, that give falfe hopes of Pardon and Salvation without Obedience and a good Life, and by fome imaginary Schemes, and fome comfortable but Erroneous and even Damnable Doctrines reconcile Religion to Mens Lufts, and the hopes of Pardon and Happiness to a carelefs and wicked life.

How this is done in the Church of Rome by their Doctrines of Penance, Confession and Abfolution, Contrition and Attrition, and the like, has been shown and made out by the Proteftant Writers against them and indeed I take thofe Principles to be the very Rotten Core of Popery, the Poyfon and Philter by which it bewitches fo many wretched Souls into its Communion, and the Antichriftian Cup of Fornication that it gives the Kings and People of the Earth to drink.

The Loofe Notions of Repentance which came at first from them, but have been taken up by many others fince, put me upon this Defign of Examining and Rectifying them, for I am perfwaded there never was any Error or any Delusion of the Devil which hath deftroyed more Souls than the fatal mistakes about this Duty, especially about a Dying Repentance; which has A 4

been

been the wretched Reserve of moft wicked Men all their Lives, and the broken Reed they have trusted to at their Deaths,whereby they have been encouraged in their Sins, and had a kind of Protection, as they thought, against all the dangers of them by this priviledge of Repenting at the laft, and by having that allowed to be valid and sufficient by the terms of the Gospel.

By this they have all along had the referved hopes of faving their Souls however wickedly they lived, and fo have excufed themselves from and shifted off the necessity of a Good life by this more eafie and compendious way; which though it were liable to fome more accidental hazards, yet might as effectually do the Business by the standing principles of Religion, and by having, as was fuppofed, an ordinary Title to Pardon and Sal vation.

This hath greatly comforted Sinners, and greatly encouraged them in their Sins, when as is commonly faid of a great many, they might hope though they lived very ill, yet to dye well and make a good end, and by being penitent at the laft, like the Thief upon the Cross, to be furely pardon'd and go to Heaven; and so this Comfortable Disjunctive has been fet up, or twofold way of going to Heaven, either by living well and

bea

being good Men before we come to Dye, or elfe by Repenting and being forry at that time that we were not fo.

The Confequences to Religion and a good Life are fo plain and fatal from hence, and I have known so many fad Inftances of its dreadful mischief in my frequent attending the Sick (whereby my experience in this cafe, if not my skill, has made me a good Phyfician) that I thought I could not do more Service to God and Religion, and the Souls of Men than to rescue them from Such falfe Notions and pernicious Miftakes about a matter of fo great confequence, and do all I could effectually to perfwade them to the Practice of Such a true Repentance as is not to be Repented of.

The ferving fuch an excellent Defign makes me venture this Difcourfe into the World without being concerned for the many Defects and Imperfections in the Style, Phrafe and Words, which a nice Critick may find in it; but I am sure the pious and welldifpofed Reader will excufe and overlook those when he is affected with the thought and matter which is of so great moment and importance; and when he is satisfied with the vertue and wholfomnessof the Phyfick, he will not I hope be fo delicate as ta

find fault with its being either too much or too little gilded.

I confefs fome part of it hath lain by me many Years (even beyond Horace's ninth) and hath many youthful ftrokes in it, to fhow it was drawn before the reft, and to excufe its Drefs and Colours; but the Thought and Notion is all of a piece, and I have had it fo long, and confidered it fo fully, that if any shall differ from me after reading it thorough, for the strength of it lies in the Frame and Contexture of the whole and not in any fingle part, I should very much wonder and be glad to know his Reafons.

I have chofen fometimes to repeat the fame Notion as there was occafion rather than to refer the Reader back again to another place, where there would not be fuch an immediate connexion with what he was just reading, So that he would lose the fight of what went before with looking after it, and would not See the thing fo well in one view.

I have often thought that we wanted a Just and entire Difcourfe of Repentance and all that relates to it, and have wondered that among all our Excellent Practical Treatifes we should hardly have one fuch fitted for common use; among other Rea

fons