6 should heal them ";" plainly telling us, that if even then they should repent, God could not but forgive them; and therefore, because he hath now no love left to them by reason of their former obstinacy, yet wherever you can suppose repentance, there you may more than suppose a pardon. But if a man cannot, or will not repent, then it is another consideration in the meantime, nothing hinders but that every sin is pardonable to him that repents. cases. 60. But thus we find that the style of Scripture, and the expressions of the holy persons, is otherwise in the threatening and the edict, otherwise in the accidents of persons and practice. It is necessary that it be severe, when duty is demanded; but of lapsed persons it uses not to be exacted in the same dialect. It is as all laws are. In the general they are decretory, in the use and application they are easier. In the sanction they are absolute and infinite, but yet capable of interpretations, of dispensations and relaxation in particular And so it is in the present article; 'impossible,' and unpardonable,' and' damnation,' and 'shall be cut off,' and ⚫ nothing remains but fearful expectation of judgment,' are exterminating words and phrases in the law, but they do not effect all that they there signify, to any but the impenitent; according to the saying of Mark the hermit : Οὐδεὶς κατεκρίθη εἰ μὴ μετανοίας κατεφρόνησε, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐδικαιώθη εἰ μὴ ταύτης ἐπιμελῇ. Tμελ. “No man is ever justified but he that carefully repents; and no man is condemned, but he that despises repentance.”—Φιλάνθρωπον βλέμμα προσίουσαν αἰδεῖται μετάvolav, said St. Basil. "The eye of God, who is so great a lover of souls, cannot deny the intercessions and litanies of repentance." SECTION VI. The former Doctrines reduced to Practice. 61. ALTHOUGH the doors of repentance open to them, that sin after baptism, and to them that sin after repentance; yet every relapse does increase the danger, and make the sin to be less pardonable than before. For, b Matt. xii. xv. 62. I. A good man, falling into sin, does it without all necessity; he hath assistances great enough to make him conqueror, he hath reason enough to dissuade him, he hath sharp senses of the filthiness of sin, his spirit is tender, and is crushed with the uneasy load,-he sighs and wakes, and is troubled and distracted; and if he sins, he sins with pain and shame and smart; and the less of mistake there is in his case, the more of malice is ingredient, and a greater anger is like to be his portion. 63. II. It is a particular unthankfulness, when a man that was once pardoned, shall relapse. And when obliged persons prove enemies, they are ever the most malicious; as having nothing to protect or cover their shame, but impudence. ̓Αντ ̓ εὐεργεσιῆς ̓Αγαμέμνονα τίσαν ̓Αχαῖοι. So did the Greeks treat Agamemnon ill, because he used them but too well. Such persons are like travellers, who, in a storm, running to a fig-tree, when the storm is over, they beat the branches and pluck the fruit; and having run to an altar for sanctuary, they steal the chalice from the holy place, and rob the temple that secured them. And God does more resent it, that the lambs which he feeds at his own table, which are so many sons and daughters to him, that daily suck plenty from his two breasts of mercy and providence, that they should in his own house make a mutiny, and put on the fierceness of wolves, and rise up against their Lord and Shepherd. 64. III. Every relapse after repentance, is, directly and in its proper principle, a greater sin. Our first faults are pitiable, and we do pati humanum,' we do after the manner of men;' but when we are recovered, and then die again, we do 'facere diabolicum,' we 'do after the manner of devils.'For from ignorance to sin, from passion and youthful appetites to sin, from violent temptations and little strengths, to fall into sin, is no very great change: it is from a corrupted nature to corrupted manners: but from grace to return to sin, from knowledge and experience, and delight in goodness and wise notices, from God and his Christ, to return to sin, to foolish actions, and nonsense-principles, is a change great as was the fall of the morning stars, when they descended cheaply and foolishly into darkness; well therefore may it be pitied in a child to choose a bright dagger before a warm coat; but when he hath been refreshed by this and smarted by that, if he chooses again, he will choose better. But men that have tried both states, that have rejoiced for their deliverance from temptation, men that have given thanks to God for their safety and innocence, men that have been wearied and ashamed of the follies of sin, that have weighed both sides and have given wise sentence for God and for religion,-if they shall choose again, and choose amiss, it must be by something, by which Lucifer did, in the face of God, choose to defy him, and desire to turn devil, and be miserable and wicked for ever and ever. 65. IV. If a man repents of his repentances and returns to his sins, all his intermedial repentance shall stand for nothing: the sins which were marked for pardon, shall break out in guilt, and be exacted of him in fearful punishments, as if he never had repented. For if good works, crucified by sins, are made alive by repentance,—by the same reason, those sins also will live again, if the repentance dies: it being equally just, that if the man repents of his repentance, God also should repent of his pardon. 66. I. For we must observe carefully, that there is a pardon of sins proper to this life, and another proper to the world to come. "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted; and what ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven "." That is, there are two remissions, one here, the other hereafter; that here is wrought by the ministry of the word and sacraments, by faith and obedience, by mortal instruments and the divine grace; all which are divisible and gradual, and grow or diminish, ebb or flow, change or persist and consequently grow on to effect, or else fail of the grace of God, that final grace, which alone is effective of that benefit, which we here contend for. Here, in proper speaking, our pardon is but a disposition towards the great and final pardon; a possibility and ability to pursue that interest, to contend for that absolution: and accordingly, it is wrought by parts, and is signified and promoted by every act of grace, that puts us in order to heaven, or the state of final pardon: God gives us one degree of pardon, when he forbears to kill us in the act of sin, when he admits, when he calls, when he smites us into repentance, c Vide supra, num. 53. when he invites us by mercies and promises, when he abates or defers his anger, when he sweetly engages us in the ways of holiness, these are several parts and steps of pardon: for if God were extremely angry with us as we deserve, nothing of all this would be done unto us: and still God's favours increase, and the degrees of pardon multiply, as our endeavours are prosperous, as we apply ourselves to religion and holiness, and make use of the benefits of the church, the ministry of the word and sacraments, and as our resolutions pass into acts and habits of virtue. But then, in this world, we are to expect no other pardon, but a fluctuating, alterable, uncertain pardon, as our duty is uncertain. Hereafter it shall be finished, if here we persevere in the parts and progressions of our repentance but as yet it is an embryo, in a state of conduct and imperfection; here we always pray for it, always hope it, always labour for it: but we are not fully and finally absolved till the day of sentence and judgment; until that day we hope and labour. The purpose of this discourse is to represent in what state of things our pardon stands here; and that it is not only conditional, but of itself a mutable effect, a disposition towards the great pardon; and, therefore, if it be not nursed and maintained by the proper instruments of its progression, it dies like an abortive conception, and shall not have that immortality whither it was designed. Οὐκ ἄρα τοῦτο μάταιον ἔπος μερόπων τινι λέχθη, 'For it was not ill said of old, He that remits of his severity, and interrupts his course, does also break it;' and then he breaks his hopes, and dissolves the golden chain, which reached up to the foot of the throne of grace. 67. II. Here therefore the advice is reasonable and necessary: he that would ensure his pardon, must persevere in duty; and to that purpose must make a full and perfect work in his mortifications, and fights against sin; he must not suffer any thing to remain behind, which may ever spring up and bear the apples of Sodom. It is the advice of Dion Prusæensis, "He that goes to cleanse his soul from lusts, like a wild desert from beasts of prey, unless he do it thoroughly, in a short time will be destroyed by the remaining portions of his concupiscence:" for as a fever, whose violence is abated, and the malignity lessened, and the man returns to temper and reason, to quiet nights, and cheerful days, if yet there remains any of the unconquered humour, it is apt to be set on work again by every cold, or little violence of chance, and the same disease returns with a bigger violence and danger: so it is in the eradication of our sins; that which remains behind, is of too great power to effect all the purposes of our death, and to make us to have fought in vain, and lose all our labours and all our hopes, and, the intermedial piety being lost, will exasperate us the more, and kill us more certainly than our former vices; as cold water, taken to cool the body, inflames it more, and makes cold to be the kindler of a greater fire. In 68. III. Let no man be too forward in saying his sin is pardoned, for our present persuasions are too gay and confident; and that which is not repentance sufficient for a lustful thought, or one single act of uncleanness, or intemperance, we usually reckon to be the very porch of heaven, and expiatory of the vilest and most habitual crimes it were well if the spiritual and the curates of souls, were not the authors or encouragers of this looseness of confidence and credulity. To confess and to absolve is all the method of our modern repentance, even when it is the most severe. deed, in the church of England, I cannot so easily blame that proceeding; because there are so few that use the proper and secret ministry of a spiritual guide, that it is to be supposed he that does so, hath long repented and done some violence to himself and more to his sins, before he can master himself so much as to bring himself to submit to that ministry. But there where the practice is common, and the shame is taken off, and the duty returns at certain festivals, and is frequently performed,-to absolve as soon as the sinner confesses, and leave him to amend afterward if he please, is to give him confidence and carelessness, but not absolution a. 69. IV. Do not judge of the pardon of thy sins by light and trifling significations, but by long, lasting, and material events. If God continues to call thee to repentance, there is hopes that he is ready to pardon thee; and if thou dost obey the heavenly calling, and dost not defer to begin, nor stop in thy course, nor retire to thy vain conversation, thou art in d Vide Cyprian. lib. 3. ep. 14. et lib. 3. ep. 15. et 16. et de Lapsis. |