our baptism for then we enter into the condition of repentance; and repentance is not an indivisible grace, or a thing performed at once, but it is working all our lives; and therefore so is our pardon, which ebbs and flows, according as we discompose or renew the decency of our baptismal promises; and therefore it ought to be certain, that no man despair of pardon, but he that hath voluntarily renounced his baptism, or willingly estranged himself from that covenant. He that sticks to it, and still professes the religion, and approves the faith, and endeavours to obey and to do his duty, this man hath all the veracity of God to assure him and give him confidence, that he is not in an impossible state of salvation, unless God cuts him off before he can work, or that he begins to work when he can no longer choose. 11. And then let him consider, the more he fears, the more he hates his sin, that is the cause of it, and the less he can be tempted to it, and the more desirous he is of heaven; and therefore such fears are good instruments of grace, and good signs of a future pardon. 12. That God, in the old law, although he made a covenant of perfect obedience, and did not promise pardon at all after great sins, yet he did give pardon, and declared it so to them for their own and for our sakes too. So he did to David, to Manasses, to the whole nation of the Israelites, ten times in the wilderness, even after their apostasies and idolatries. And in the prophets, the mercies of God and his remissions of sin were largely preached, though, in the law, God put on the robes of an angry judge and a severe lord. But therefore in the gospel, where he hath established the whole sum of affairs upon faith and repentance, if God should not pardon great sinners, that repent after baptism with a free dispensation, the gospel were far harder than the intolerable covenant of the law. 13. That if a proselyte went into the Jewish communion, and were circumcised and baptized, he entered into all the hopes of good things, which God had promised, or would give, to his people; and yet that was but the covenant of works. If then the gentile proselytes, by their circumcision and legal baptism, were admitted to a state of pardon, to last so long as they were in the covenant, even after their admission, for sins committed against Moses's law, which they then undertook to observe exactly: in the gospel, which is the covenant of faith, it must needs be certain, that there is a greater grace given, and an easier condition entered into, than was that of the Jewish law and that is nothing else, but that abatement is made for our infirmities, and our single evils, and our timely repented and forsaken habits of sin, and our violent passions, when they are contested withal, and fought with, and under discipline, and in the beginnings and progresses of mortification. 14. That God hath erected in his church a whole order of men, the main part and dignity of whose work it is to remit and retain sins by a perpetual and daily ministry and this they do, not only in baptism, but in all their offices to be administered afterwards; in the holy sacrament of the eucharist, which exhibits Ezek. xviii. Joel ii.

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15.

the symbols of that blood which was shed for pardon of our sins, and therefore by its continued mystery and repetition declares, that all that while we are within the ordinary powers and usual dispensations of pardon, even so long as we are in any probable dispositions to receive that holy sacrament. And the same effect is also signified and exhibited in the whole power of the keys, which, if it extends to private sins, sins done in secret, it is certain it does also to public. But this is a greater testimony of the certainty of the remissibility of our greatest sins for public sins, as they always have a sting and a superadded formality of scandal and ill example, so they are most commonly the greatest; such as murder, sacrilege, and others of unconcealed nature and unprivate action; and if God, for these worst of evils, hath appointed an office of ease and pardon, which is, and may, daily be administered, that will be an uneasy pusillanimity and fond suspicion of God's goodness, to fear, that our repentance shall be rejected, even although we have committed the greatest or the most of evils. And it was concerning baptized christians that St. John said, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, and he is the propitiation for our sins;" and concerning lapsed christians St. Paul gave instruction, that "If any man be overtaken in a fault, ye, which are spiritual, restore such a man in the spirit of meekness; considering, lest ye also be tempted." The Corinthian christian committed incest, and was pardoned: and Simon Magus, after he was baptized, offered to commit his own sin of simony; and yet St. Peter bid him pray for pardon: and St. James tells, that "if the sick man sends for the elders of the church, and they pray over him, and he confess his sins, they shall be forgiven him." 16. That only one sin is declared to be irremissible, "the sin against the Holy Ghost, the sin unto death," as St. John calls it, for which we are not bound to pray; for all others we are: and certain it is, no man commits a sin against the Holy Ghost, if he be afraid he hath, and desires that he had not; for such penitential passions are against the definition of that sin. 17. That all the sermons in the Scripture written to christians and disciples of Jesus, exhorting men to repentance, to be afflicted, to mourn and to weep, to confession of sins, are sure testimonies of God's purpose and desire to forgive us, even when we fall after baptism: and if our fall after baptism were irrecoverable, then all preaching were in vain, and our faith were also vain, and we could not with comfort rehearse the creed, in which, as soon as ever we profess Jesus to have died for our sins, we also are condemned by our own conscience of a sin that shall not be forgiven; and then all exhortations, and comforts, and fasts, and disciplines were useless and too late, if they were not given us before we can understand them; for most commonly, as soon as we can, we enter into the regions of sin; for we commit evil actions before we understand, and together with our understanding they begin to be imputed. 18. That if it could be otherwise, infants were very ill provided for in the church, who were baptized, when

they have no stain upon their brows, but the misery they contracted from Adam: and they are left to be angels for ever after, and live innocently in the midst of their ignorances, and weaknesses, and temptations, and the heat and follies of youth; or else to perish in an eternal ruin. We cannot think or speak good things of God, if we entertain such evil suspicions of the mercies of the Father of our Lord Jesus. 19. That the long-sufferance and patience of God is indeed wonderful; but therefore it leaves us in certainties of pardon, so long as there is a possibility to return, if we reduce the power to act. 20. That God calls upon us to forgive our brother seventy times seven times; and yet all that is but like the forgiving a hundred pence for his sake, who forgives us ten thousand talents; for so the Lord professed, that he had done to him that was his servant and his domestic. 21. That if we can forgive a hundred thousand times, it is certain God will do so to us; our blessed Lord having commanded us to pray for pardon, as we pardon our offending and penitent brother. 22. That even in the case of very great sins, and great judgments inflicted upon the sinners, wise and good men and presidents of religion have declared their sense to be, that God spent all his anger, and made it expire in that temporal misery; and so it was supposed to have been done in the case of Ananias; but that the hopes of any penitent man may not rely upon any uncertainty, we find in holy Scripture, that those christians, who had, for their scandalous crimes, deserved to be given over to Satan to be buffeted, yet had hopes to be saved in the day of the Lord. 23. That God glories in the titles of mercy and forgiveness, and will not have his appellatives so finite and limited as to expire in one act, or in a seldom pardon. 24. That man's condition were desperate, and like that of the fallen angels, equally desperate, but unequally oppressed, considering our infinite weaknesses and ignorances, (in respect of their excellent understanding and perfect choice,) if he could be admitted to no repentance after his infant-baptism: and if he may be admitted to one, there is nothing in the covenant of the gospel, but he may also to a second, and so for ever, as long as he can repent, and return and live to God in a timely religion. 25. That every man is a sinner: "In many things we offend all;" and, "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves: "u and therefore either all must perish, or else there is mercy for all; and so there is upon this very stock, because "Christ died for sinners,"x and, "God hath comprehended all under sin, that he might have mercy upon all." y 26. That if ever God sends temporal punishments into the world with purposes of amendment, and if they be not, all of them, certain consignations to hell, and unless every man, that breaks his leg, or in punishment loses a child or wife, be certainly damned, it is certain, that God, in these cases, is angry and loving, chastises the sin to amend the person, and smites, that he may cure, and judges, that he may absolve. 27. That he, that will not quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed, will not t James iii. 2.

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u 1 John i. 8.

tie us to perfection, and the laws and measures of heaven upon earth and if, in every period of our repentance, he is pleased with our duty, and the voice of our heart and the hand of our desires, he hath told us plainly, that he will not only pardon all the sins of the days of our folly, but the returns and surprises of sins in the days of repentance, if we give no way, and allow no affection, and give no place to any thing that is God's enemy; all the past sins, and all the seldom-returning and everrepented evils being put upon the accounts of the

cross.

An Exercise against Despair in the Day of our Death.

To which may be added this short exercise, to be used for the curing the temptation to direct despair, in case that the hope and faith of good men be assaulted in the day of their calamity.

I consider that the ground of my trouble is my sin; and if it were not for that, I should not need to be troubled: but the help, that all the world looks for, is such, as supposes a man to be a sinner. Indeed if from myself I were to derive my title to heaven, then my sins were a just argument of despair; but now that they bring me to Christ, that they drive me to an appeal to God's mercies, and to take sanctuary in the cross, they ought not, they cannot infer a just cause of despair. I am sure it is a stranger thing, that God should take upon him hands and feet, and those hands and feet should be nailed upon a cross, than that a man should be partaker of the felicities of pardon and life eternal: and it were stranger yet that God should do so much for man, and that a man that desires it, that labours for it, that is in life and possibilities of working his salvation, should inevitably miss that end, for which that God suffered so much. For what is the meaning, and what is the extent, and what are the significations of the Divine mercy in pardoning sinners? If it be thought a great matter, that I am charged with original sin, I confess I feel the weight of it in loads of temporal infelicities, and proclivities to sin but I fear not the guilt of it, since I am baptized; and it cannot do honour to the reputation of God's mercy, that it should be all spent in remissions of what I never chose, never acted, never knew of, could not help, concerning which I received no commandment, no prohibition. But, blessed be God, it is ordered in just measures, that that original evil, which I contracted without my will, should be taken away without my knowledge; and what I suffered before I had a being, was cleansed before I had a useful understanding. But I am taught to believe God's mercies to be infinite, not only in himself, but to us: for mercy is a relative term, and we are its correspondent: of all the creatures which God made, we only, in a proper sense, are the subjects of mercy and remission. Angels have more of God's bounty than we have, but not so much of his mercy and beasts have little rays of his kindness, and effects of his wisdom and graciousness in petty donatives, but nothing of mercy; for they y Rom. xi. 32.

* Rom. v. 8.

have no laws, and therefore no sins, and need no mercy, nor are capable of any. Since therefore man alone is the correlative or proper object and vessel of reception of an infinite mercy, and that mercy is in giving and forgiving, I have reason to hope, that he will so forgive me, that my sins shall not hinder me of heaven or because it is a gift, I may also, upon the stock of the same infinite mercy, hope he will give heaven to me; and if I have it either upon the title of giving or forgiving, it is alike to me, and will alike magnify the glories of the Divine mercy. And because eternal life is the gift of God, I have less reason to despair: for if my sins were fewer, and my disproportions towards such a glory were less, and my evenness more; yet it is still a gift, and I could not receive it but as a free and a gracious donative; and so I may still: God can still give it me; and it is not an impossible expectation to wait and look for such a gift at the hands of the God of mercy: the best men deserve it not; and I, who am the worst, may have it given me. And I consider, that God hath set no measures of his mercy, but that we be within the covenant, that is, repenting persons, endeavouring to serve him with an honest single heart; and that, within this covenant, there is a very great latitude, and variety of persons, and degrees, and capacities; and therefore, that it cannot stand with the proportions of so infinite a mercy, that obedience be exacted to such a point, which he never expressed unless it should be the least, and that to which all capacities, though otherwise unequal, are fitted and sufficiently enabled. But, however, I find, that the Spirit of God taught the writers of the New Testament to apply to us all, in general, and to every single person in particular, some gracious words, which God in the Old Testament spake to one man, upon a special occasion, in a single and temporal instance. Such are the words which God spake to Joshua: "I will never fail thee, nor forsake thee:" and, upon the stock of that promise, St. Paul forbids covetousness, and persuades contentedness, because those words were spoken by God to Joshua in another case. If the gracious words of God have so great extension of parts, and intention of kind purposes, then how many comforts have we, upon the stock of all the excellent words which are spoken in the Prophets and in the Psalms! and I will never more question, whether they be spoken concerning me, having such an authentic precedent so to expound the excellent words of God: all the treasures of God, which are in the Psalms, are my own riches, and the wealth of my hope: there will I look; and whatsoever I can need, that I will depend upon. For certainly, if we could understand it, that which is infinite (as God is) must needs be some such kind of thing it must go whither it was never sent, and signify what was not first intended, and it must warm with its light, and shine with its heat, and refresh when it strikes, and heal when it wounds, and ascertain where it makes afraid, and intend all when it warns one, and mean a great deal in a small word. And as the sun, passing to its southern

Rom. vi. 23.

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a Heb. xiii. 5.

tropic, looks with an open eye upon his sun-burnt Ethiopians, but at the same time sends light from its posterns, and collateral influences from the backside of his beams, and sees the corners of the east, when his face tends towards the west, because he is a round body of fire, and hath some little images and resemblances of the Infinite; so is God's mercy: when it looked upon Moses, it relieved St. Paul, and it pardoned David, and gave hope to Manasses, and might have restored Judas, if he would have had hope, and used himself accordingly. But as to my own case, I have sinned grievously and frequently; but I have repented it; but I have begged pardon : I have confessed it and forsaken it. I cannot undo what was done, and I perish if God hath appointed no remedy, if there be no remission; but then my religion falls together with my hope, and God's word fails, as well as I. But I believe the article of forgiveness of sins; and if there be any such thing, I may do well, for I have, and do, and will do that, which all good men call repentance; that is, I will be humbled before God, and mourn for my sin, and for ever ask forgiveness, and judge myself, and leave it with haste, and mortify it with diligence, and watch against it carefully. And this I can do but in the manner of a man: I can but mourn for my sins, as I apprehend grief in other instances; but I will rather choose to suffer all evils, than to do one deliberate act of sin. I know my sins are greater than my sorrow, and too many for my memory, and too insinuating to be prevented by all my care: but I know also, that God knows and pities my infirmities; and how far that will extend I know not, but that will reach so far as to satisfy my needs, is the matter of my hope. But this I am sure of, that I have, in my great necessity, prayed humbly and with great desire, and sometimes I have been heard in kind, and sometimes have had a bigger mercy instead of it; and I have the hope of prayers, and the hope of my confession, and the hope of my endeavour, and the hope of many promises, and of God's essential goodness; and I am sure, that God hath heard my prayers, and verified his promises in temporal instances, for he ever gave me sufficient for my life; and although he promised such supplies, and grounded the confidences of them upon our first seeking the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, yet he hath verified it to me, who have not sought it as I ought; but therefore I hope he accepted my endeavour, or will give his great gifts and our great expectation even to the weakest endeavour, to the least, so it be a hearty, piety. And sometimes I have had some cheerful visitations of God's Spirit, and my cup hath been crowned with comfort, and the wine, that made my heart glad, danced in the chalice, and I was glad that God would have me so; and therefore, I hope, this cloud may pass for that which was then a real cause of comfort, is so still, if I could discern it; and I shall discern it when the veil is taken from mine eyes. And blessed be God, I can still remember, that there are temptations to despair; and they could not be temptations, if they were not apt to b Vixi, peccavi, pœnitui, naturæ cessi.

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