תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

ground, or spend whole nights in prayer, or make himself sick with fasting; but he that in all circumstances refuses any or all of these, and hath not hatred enough against his sin to punish it in himself, when to do so may accidentally be necessary or enjoined, he hath cause to suspect himself not to be a true penitent.

4. No one of these is necessary in the special instance, except those which are, distinctly and upon their own accounts, under another precept, as prayer, and forgiving injuries, and self-affliction in general, and confession. But those which are only apt ministries to the grace, which can be ministered unto equally by other instances, those are left to the choice of every one, or to be determined or bound upon us by accidents and by the church. But every one of the particulars hath in it something of special consideration.

SECTION II.

Of Contrition, or godly Sorrow.

5. In all repentances it is necessary, that we understand some sorrow ingredient, or appendant, or beginning. To repent, is to leave a sin; which because it must have a cause to effect it, can begin no where but where the sin is, for some reason or other, disliked, that is, because it does a mischief. It is enough to leave it, that we know it will ruin us if we abide in it; but that is not enough to make us grieve for it, when it is past and quitted. For if we believe that as soon as ever we repent of it, we shall be accepted to pardon, and that infallibly, and that being once forsaken it does not, and shall not, prejudice us,—he that considers this, and remembers it was pleasant to him, will scarce find cause enough to be sorrowful for it. Neither is it enough to say, he must grieve for it, or else it will do him mischief: for this is not true; for how can sorrow prevent the mischief, when the sorrow of itself is not an essential duty? Or if it were so in itself, yet by accident it becomes not to be so; for, by being unreasonable and impossible, it becomes also not necessary, not a duty. To be sorrowful is not always in our power, any

more than to be merry; and both of them are the natural products of their own objects, and of nothing else; and then if sin does us pleasure at first, and at last no mischief to the penitent, to bid them be sorrowful lest it should do mischief, is as improper a remedy, as if we were commanded to be hungry to prevent being beaten. He that felt nothing but the pleasure of sin, and is now told he shall feel none of its evils, and that it can no more hurt him when it is forsaken, than a bee when the sting is out,-if he be commanded to grieve, may justly return in answer, that as yet he perceives no cause.

6. If it be told him, it is cause enough to grieve that he hath offended God, who can punish him with sad, insufferable, and eternal torments :-This is very true :-But if God be not angry with him, and he be told that God will not punish him for the sin he repents of, then to grieve for having offended God, is so metaphysical and abstracted a speculation, that there must be something else in it, before a sinner can be tied to it. For to have displeased God is a great evil; but what is it to me, if it will bring no evil to me? It is a metaphysical and a moral evil; but unless it be also naturally and sensibly so, it is not the object of a natural and proper grief. It follows therefore, that the state of a repenting person must have in it some more causes of sorrow than are usually taught, or else in vain can they be called upon to weep and mourn for their sins. Well may they wring their faces and their hands, and put on black, those disguises of passion and curtains of joy, those ceremonies and shadows of rich widows and richer heirs, by which they decently hide their secret smiles: well may they 'rend their garments,' but upon this account they can never 'rend their hearts.'

7. For the stating of this article it is considerable, that there are several parts or periods of sorrow, which are effected by several principles. In the beginning of our repentance, sometimes we feel cause enough to grieve. For God smites many into repentance; either a sharp sickness does. awaken us, or a calamity upon our house, or the death of our dearest relative; and they that find sin so heavily incumbent, and to press their persons or fortunes with feet of lead, will feel cause enough, and need not to be disputed into a penitential sorrow. They feel God's anger, and the evil effects of sin, and that it brings sorrow; and then the sorrow is

justly great, because we have done that evil which brings so sad a judgment.

8. And in the same proportion, there is always a natural cause of sorrow, where there is a real cause of fear; and so it is ever in the beginning of repentance; and for aught we know, it is for ever so; and albeit the causes of fear lessen as the repentance does proceed, yet it will never go quite off, till hope itself be gone and passed into charity, or at least, into a wεol@nois kaì wapρnola, into that fulness of confidence,' which is given to few as the reward of a lasting and conspicuous holiness. And the reason is plain. For though it be certain in religion, that whoever repents shall be pardoned, yet it is a long time, before any man hath repented worthily; and it is as uncertain in what manner, and in what measures, and in what time, God will give us pardon. It is as easy to tell the very day, in which a man first comes to the use of reason, as to tell the very time, in which we are accepted to final pardon; the progressions of one being as divisible as the other, and less discernible. For reason gives many fair indications of itself; whereas God keeps the secrets of this mercy in his sanctuary, and draws not the curtain till the day of death or judgment.

9. Add to this, that our very repentances have many allays and imperfections, and so hath our pardon.

And every one that sins, hath so displeased God, that he is become the subject of the divine anger. "Death is the wages;" what death God may please, and therefore what evil soever God will inflict, or his mortality can suffer and he that knows this, hath cause to fear; and he that fears, hath cause to be grieved that he is fallen from that state of divine favour, in which he stood secured with the guards of angels, and covered with heaven itself as with a shield, in which he was beloved of God and heir of all his glories.

10. But they, that describe repentance in short and obscure characters, and make repentance and pardon to be the children of a minute, and born and grown up quickly as a fly, or a mushroom, with the dew of a night, or the tears of a morning, making the labours of the one, and the want of the other, to expire sooner than the pleasures of a transient sin,-are so insensible of the sting of sin, that indeed, upon their grounds, it will be impossible to have a real godly sor

[blocks in formation]

row. For though they have done evil, yet by this doctrine they feel none; and nothing remains as a cause of grief, unless they will be sorrowful for that they have been pleased formerly, and are now secured; nothing remains before them, or behind, but the pleasure that they had and the present confidence and impunity: and that is no good instrument of sorrow. Securitas delicti etiam libido est ejus." Sin takes occasion by the law itself, if there be no penalty annexed.

11. But the first inlet of a godly sorrow, which is the beginning of repentance, is upon the stock of their present danger and state of evil, into which by their sin they are, fallen,-viz. when their guilt is manifest, they see that they. are become sons of death, exposed to the wrath of a provoked Deity, whose anger will express itself when and how it please, and, for aught the man knows, it may be the greatest, and it may be intolerable: and though his danger is imminent and certain, yet his pardon is a great way off; it may be yea, it may be no; it must be hoped for, but it. may be missed,—for it is upon conditions; and they are, or will seem, very hard.

Sed, ut valeas, multa dolenda feres:

So that in the sum of affairs, however that the greatest sinner and the smallest penitent, are very apt, and are taught by strange doctrines, to flatter themselves into confidence and presumption,-yet he will have reason to mourn and weep, when he shall consider that he is in so sad a condition, that because his life is uncertain, it is also uncertain, whether or no he shall not be condemned to an eternal prison of flames: so that every sinner hath the same reason to be sorrowful, as he hath, who, from a great state of blessings and confidence, is fallen into great fears and great dangers, and a certain guilt and liableness of losing all he hath, and suffering all that is insufferable. They who state repentance otherwise, cannot make it reasonable, that a penitent should shed a tear. And therefore it is no wonder, that we so easily observe a great dulness and indifferency, so many dry eyes and merry hearts, in persons that pretend repentance, it cannot more reasonably be attributed to any cause, than to those trifling and easy propositions of men, that destroy the causes of sorrow, by lessening and taking off the

opinion of danger. But now, that they are observed and reproved, I hope the evil will be lessened. But to proceed.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

12. Having now stated the reasonableness and causes of penitential sorrow; the next inquiry is into the nature and constitution of that sorrow. For it is to be observed, that penitential sorrow is not seated in the affections directly, but in the understanding: and is rather odium' than dolor;' it is hatred' of sin, and detestation of it, a nolition, a renouncing and disclaiming it, whose expression is a resolution never to sin, and a pursuance of that resolution, by abstaining from the occasions, by praying for the divine aid, by using the proper remedies for its mortification. This is essential to repentance, and must be, in every man, in the highest kind. For he that does not hate sin, so as rather to choose to suffer any evil, than to do any,-loves himself more than he loves God; because he fears to displease himself rather than to displease him, and therefore is not a true penitent.

13. But although this be not grief, or sorrow properly, but hatred, yet in hatred there is ever a sorrow, if we have done or suffered what we hate; and whether it be sorrow or no, is but a speculation of philosophy, but no ingredient of duty. It is that which will destroy sin, and bring us to God; and that is the purpose of repentance.

14. For it is remarkable, that sorrow is indeed an excellent instrument of repentance, apt to set forward many of its ministries, and without which men ordinarily will not leave their sins; but if the thing be done, though wholly upon the discourses of reason, upon intuition of the danger, upon contemplation of the unworthiness of sin, or only upon the principle of hope, or fear,—it matters not which is the beginning of repentance. For we find fear' reckoned to be the beginning of wisdom,' that is, of repentance, of wise and sober counsels, by Solomon. We find sorrow' to be reckoned as the beginning of repentance by St. Paul; "Godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of."-So many ways as there are, by which God works repentance in those whom he will bring unto salvation, to all the kinds of these there are proper apportioned passions: and as in all good things

« הקודםהמשך »