UNUM NECESSARIUM; OR, THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF REPENTANCE. DESCRIBING THE NECESSITIES AND MEASURES OF A STRICT, A HOLY, AND AND RESCUED FROM POPULAR ERRORS. The following treatise is, in itself, and with reference to its immediate subject, less controversial than devotional. As, however, it gave occasion to several of Taylor's writings which are strictly polemical, and from which it could hardly be separated without inconvenience to the reader; as it contains, moreover, some controverted positions, and as the author himself professes, at least incidentally, to assail some of the opinions usual among Christians on the subject of Repentance, it has been thought advisable to give it a place in the present volume, rather than among those works which exclusively refer to practice or devotion. ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND NOBLEST LORD, RICHARD, EARL OF CARBERY, &c. MY LORD, THE duty of repentance is of so great and universal concernment, a catholicon to the evils of the soul of every man, that if there be any particular in which it is worthy the labours of the whole ecclesiastical calling, to be instant in season and out of season,' it is in this duty; and therefore I hope I shall be excused, if my discourses of repentance, like the duty itself, be perpetually increasing; and I may, like the widow in the Gospel to the unjust judge, at least hope to prevail with some men by my importunity. Men have found out so many devices and arts to cozen themselves, that they will rather admit any weak discourses and images of reason, than think it necessary to repent speedily, severely, and effectively. We find that sinners are prosperous, and God is long before he strikes; and it is always another man's case, when we see a judgment happen up on a sinner, we feel it not ourselves, for when we do, it is commonly past remedy. Indeed it was to be pitied in the heathen, that many of them were tempted to take the thriving side, when religion itself was unprosperous. When Jupiter suffered his golden sceptre to be stole, and the image never frowned; and a bold fellow would scrape the ivory thigh of Hercules, and go away without a broken pate, for all the club that was in his hand; they thought they had reason to think there was no more sacredness in the images of their gods, than in the statues of Vagellius: and because the event of all regular actions was not regular and equal, but Catiline was hewn down by the consul's sword for his rebellion, and for the same thing Cæsar became a prince, they believed that the power that governed these extraregular events, must itself be various and changeable, and they called it Fortune.' But, my Lord, that Christians should thus dote upon temporal events, and the little baits of fishes and the meat of dogs, adoring every thing that is prosperous, and hating that condition of things that brings trouble, is not to be pardoned to them who profess themselves servants and disciples of a crucified Lord and Master. But it is upon the same account, that men are so hardly brought to repent, or to believe that repentance hath in it so many parts, and requires so much labour, and exacts such caution, and cannot be performed a Juv. xiii. 119.. without the best assistances, or the greatest skill in spiritual notices. They find sin pleasant and prosperous, gay and in the fashion: and though wise men know it is better to be pleased than to be merry, to have rest and satisfaction in wisdom and perfective notices of things, than to laugh loud, and fright sobriety away with noises, and dissolution, and forgetfulness: yet this severer pleasure seems dull andflat, and men generally betake themselves to the wildnesses of sin, and hate to have it interrupted by the intervening of the sullen grace of repentance. It was a sprightly saying of him in the comedy, Ego vitam Deorum proptereà sempiternam esse arbitror, Quòd voluptates eorum propriæ sunt: nam mihi immortalitas Parta est, si nulla huic ægritudo gaudio intercesserit ". "Our immortality is to be reckoned by the continuance of our pleasure: my life is then perpetual, when my delights are not interrupted." And this is the immortality, that too many men look after by incompetent means. But to be called upon to repentance, and when men inquire what that is, to be told it is all the duty of a returning man; the extermination of sin, the mortification of all our irregular appetites, and all that perfection of righteousness which can consist with our state of imperfection; and that in order to these purposes, we must not refuse the sharpest instruments, that they may be even cut off which trouble us,' but that we suffer all the severity of voluntary or imposed discipline, according Andr. 5, 5. 3. |