greatness of sorrow may destroy those powers of serving God, which ought to be preserved to all the purposes of charity and religion. This caution was not to be omitted, although very few will have use of it: because if any should be transported into a pertinacious sorrow, by great considerations of their sin, and that sorrow meet with an ill temper of body, apt to sorrow and afflictive thoughts, it would make religion to be a burden, and all passions turn into sorrow, and the service of God to consist but of one duty, and would naturally tend to very evil consequents. For whoever, upon the conditions of the Gospel, can hope for pardon, he cannot maintain a too great actual sorrow long upon the stock of his sins. It will be allayed with hope, and change into new shapes, and be a sorrow in other faculties than where it first began, and to other purposes than those to which it did then minister. But if his sorrow be too great, it is because the man hath little or no hope. 95. IX. But if it happens that any man falls into an excessive sorrow, his cure must be attempted, not directly, but collaterally; not by lessening the consideration of his sins, nor yet by comparing them with the greater sins of others; like the grave man in the satire. Si nullum in terris tam detestabile factum Quandoquidem accepto claudenda est janua damno 8. For this is but an instance of the other, this lessens the sin indirectly but let it be done by heightening the consideration of the divine mercy and clemency; for even yet this will far exceed, and this is highly to be taken heed of. For, besides that there is no need of taking off his opinion from the greatness of the sin; it is dangerous to teach a man to despise a sin at any hand. For if, after his great sorrow, he can be brought to think his sin little, he will be the sooner brought to commit it again, and think it none at all: and when he shall think his sorrow to have been unreasonable, he will not so soon be brought to an excellent repentance another time. But the Prophet's great comfort may safely be applied: "Misericordia Dei prævalitura est super omnem malitiam hominis;" "God's mercy is greater than all the malice of men, Juv. 15. 126. Ruperti. and will prevail over it." But this is to be applied so as to cure only the wounds of a conscience that ought to be healed, that is, so as to advance the reputation and glories of the divine mercy: but, at no hand, to create confidences in persons incompetent. If the man be worthy, and capable, and yet tempted to a prevailing and excessive sorrow; to him, in this case, and so far, the application is to be made. In other cases there is no need, but some danger. 96. X. Although sorrow for sin must be constant and habitual, yet to particular acts of sin, when a special sorrow is apportioned, it cannot be expected to be of the same manner and continuance, as it ought to be in general repentances, for our many sins, and our evil habits. For every single folly of swearing rashly, or vainly, or falsely, there ought to be a particular sorrow, and a special deprecation; but, it may be, another will intervene, and a third will steal in upon you, or you are surprised in another instance; or you are angry with yourself for doing so, and that anger transports you to some indecent expression; and as a wave follows a wave, we shall find instances of folly crowd in upon us. If we observe strictly, we shall prevent some, but we shall observe too many to press us; if we observe not, they will multiply without notice and without number. But, in either case, it will be impossible to attend to every one of them with a special, lasting sorrow: and yet one act of sorrow is too little for any one chosen sin, as I have proved formerly. In this case, when we have prayed for pardon of each, confessed it, acknowledged the folly of it, deprecated the punishment, suffered the shame, and endured the sorrow, and begged for aids against it, and renewed our force; it will fall into the heap of the state and generality of repentance; that is, it will be added to the portentous number of follies, for which, in general and indefinite comprehensions, we must beg for pardon, humbly and earnestly, all the days of our life. And I have no caution to be added here, but this only: viz. That we be not too hasty to put it into the general heap, but according to the greatness, or the danger, or its mischief, or its approach towards a habit, so it is to be kept in fetters by itself alone. For he that quickly passes it into the general heap, either cares too little for it, or is too soon surprised by a new one; which would not so easily have happened, if he had been more severe to the first. 97. XI. It is a great matter, that, in our inquiries concerning our penitential sorrow, we be able to discern what is the present motive and incentive of it: whether fear or love, whether it be attrition or contrition. For by this we can tell best, in what state or period of pardon we stand. I do not say, we are to inquire what motive began our sorrow for fear begins most commonly; but we are to regard what is the present inducement, which continues the hatred; that is, whither our first fears have borne us? If fear only be the agent, at the best it is still imperfect; and our pardon a great way off from being finished; and our repentance, or state of reformation, nothing promoted. But of these things I have, in the former doctrine, given accounts. To which I only add this, as being an advice or caution flowing from the former discourses. 98. XII. He that, upon any pretence whatsoever, puts off his repentance to the last or the worst of his days, hath just reason to suspect, that even when he doth repent, he hath not the grace of contrition, that is, that he repents for fear, not for love and that his affections to sin remain. The reason is, because what proceeds from an intolerable and a violent cause, as repentance in sickness and danger of death, or in the day of our calamity, does, is, of itself for the present, defective in a main part, and cannot arrive at pardon, till the love of God be in it: so Christ said of Mary Magdalen; "Much hath been forgiven her, because she loved much;" but from a great fear to pass into love is a work of time, the effect of a long progression in repentance, and is not easy to be done in those straitnesses of time and grace, which is part of the evil portion of dying sinners. Therefore, besides those many and great considerations, which I have before represented, upon this account alone, repentance must not be put sented,-upon off to our death-bed, because our fear must pass into love, before our sins are taken off by pardon. proponimus illac Ire, fatigalas ubi Dædalus exuit alas, We have a great way to go, a huge progression to make, a * Juv. 3, 25. mighty work to be done, to which time is as "necessary as labour and observation; and therefore we must not put it off, till what begins in fear, cannot pass into love, and therefore it is too likely to end in sorrow; their fears overtake such men; it is too much to be feared, that what they fear, will happen to them. 99. XIII. And after all, it is to be remembered, that sorrow for sins is not repentance, but a sign, an instrument of it, an inlet to it; without which, indeed, repentance cannot be supposed; as manhood must suppose childhood; perfect supposes that it was imperfect: but repentance is after sin, of the same extent of signification, and contains more duties and labour to the perfection of its parts, than innocence. Repentance is like the sun, which enlightens not only the tops of the eastern hills, or warms the wall-fruits of Italy; it makes the little balsam-tree to weep precious tears, with staring upon its beauties; it produces rich spices in Arabia, and warms the cold hermit in his grot, and calls the religious man from his dorter in all the parts of the world where holy religion dwells; at the same time it digests the American gold, and melts the snows from the Riphæan mountains, because he darts his rays in every portion of the air; and the smallest atom that dances in the air, is tied to a little thread of light, which by equal emanations fills all the capacities of every region so is repentance; it scatters its beams and holy influences; it kills the lust of the eyes, and mortifies the pride of life; it crucifies the desires of the flesh, and brings the understanding to the obedience of Jesus; the fear of it bids war against the sin, and the sorrow breaks the heart of it: the hope that is mingled with contrition, enkindles our desires to return; and the love that is in it, procures our pardon; and the confidence of that pardon does increase our love, and that love is obedience, and that obedience is sanctification, and that sanctification supposes the man to be justified before; and he that is justified, must be justified still; and thus repentance is a holy life. But the little drops of a beginning sorrow, and the pert resolution to live better, never passing into act and habit; the quick and rash vows of the newly-returning man, and the confusion of face espied in the convicted sinner;-if they proceed no further, are but like the sudden fires of the night, which glare for awhile within a little continent of air big enough to make a fire-ball, or the revolution of a minute's walk. These when they are alone, and do not actually and with effect minister to the wise counsels and firm progressions of a holy life, are as far from procuring pardon, as they are from a life of piety and holi ness. SECTION VIII. 100. XIV. In the making confession of our sins, let us be most careful to do it so, as may most glorify God, and advance the reputation of his wisdom, his justice, and his mercy. For if we consider it, in all judicatories of the world, and in all the arts and violences of men which have been used to extort confessions, their purposes have been, that justice should be done, that the public wisdom and authority should not be dishonoured; that public criminals should not be defended or assisted by public pity, or the voice of the people sharpened against the public rods and axes, by supposing they have smitten the innocent. Confession of the crime prevents all these evils, and does well serve all these good ends. Gnosius hæc Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna, So the heathens did suppose was done in the lower regions. The judge did examine and hear their crimes and crafts, and even there compelled them to confess,' that the eternal justice may be publicly acknowledged; for all the honour that we can do to the divine attributes, is publicly to confess them, and make others so to do; for so God is pleased to receive honour from us. Therefore, repentance being a return to God, a ceasing to dishonour him any more, and a restoring him, so far as we can, to the honour we deprived him of;-it ought to be done with as much humility and sorrow, with as clear glorifications of God and condemnations of ourselves, as we can. To which purpose, 101. XV. He that confesseth his sins, must do it with all sincerity and simplicity of spirit, not to serve ends, or to make religion the minister of design; but to destroy our i Æn. 6. 566. Heyne. |