and holy resolutions, active and effective of my duty. Olet me never fall from sin to sin, nor persevere in any, nor love any thing which thou hatest; but give me thy Holy Spirit, to conduct and rule me for ever; and make me obedient to thy good Spirit, never to grieve him, never to resist him, never to quench him. Keep me, O Lord, with thy mighty power, from falling into presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me: so shall I be innocent from the great offence. Let me never despair of thy mercies by reason of my sins, nor neglect my repentance by reason of thy infinite loving-kindness; but let thy goodness bring me and all sinners to repentance, and thy mercies give us pardon, and thy Holy Spirit give us perseverance, and thy infinite favour bring us to glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHAP. X.

OF ECCLESIASTICAL PENANCE; OR THE FRUITS OF REPENTANCE.

SECTION I.

THE fruits of repentance are the actions of spiritual life; and signify properly, all that piety and obedience which we pay to God in the days of our return, after we have begun to follow sober counsels. For since all the duty of a Christian is a state of repentance, that is, of contention against sin, and the parts and proper periods of victory; and repentance, which includes the faith of a Christian, is but another word to express the same grace, or mercies of the evangelical covenant; it follows, that whatsoever is the duty of a Christian, and a means to possess that grace, is, in some sense or other, a repentance, or the fruits of God's mercy and our endeayours. And in this sense St. John the Baptist means it, saying, "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance;" that is, "Since now the great expectation of the world is to be satisfied, and the Lord's Christ will open the gates of mercy, and give repentance to the world, see that ye live accordingly, in the faith and obedience of God through Jesus

Christ."-That did, in the event of things, prove to be the effect of that sermon.

2. But although all the parts of holy life are fruits of repentance, when it is taken for the state of favour published by the Gospel; yet when repentance is a particular duty or virtue, the integral parts of holy life are also constituent parts of repentance; and then, by the fruits of repentance, must be meant, the less necessary, but very useful, effects and ministries of repentance, which are significations and exercises of the main duty. And these are sorrow for sins, commonly called contrition, confession of them, and satisfactions; by which ought to be meant, an opposing a contrary act of virtue to the precedent act of sin, and a punishing of ourselves out of sorrow and indignation for our folly. And this is best done by all those acts of religion by which God is properly appeased, and sin is destroyed,-that is, by those acts. which signify our love to God, and our hatred to sin, such as are prayer, and alms, and forgiving injuries, and punishing ourselves, that is, a forgiving every one but ourselves.

3. Many of these, I say, are not essential parts of repentance, without the actual exercise of which no man in any case can be said to be truly penitent; for the constituent parts of repentance, are nothing but the essential parts of obedience to the commandments of God, that is, direct abstinence from evil, and doing what is in the precept. But they are fruits and significations, exercises and blessed productions, of repentance, useful to excellent purposes of it, and such from which a man cannot be excused, but by great accidents and rare contingencies. To visit prisoners, and to redeem captives, and to instruct the ignorant, are acts of charity; but he that does not act these special instances, is not always to be condemned for want of charity, because by other acts of grace he may signify and exercise his duty: he only that refuses any instances, because the grace is not operative, he only is the uncharitable; but to the particulars he can be determined only by something from without, but it is sufficient to the grace itself, that it works where it can, or where it is prudently chosen. So it is in these fruits of repentance. He that out of hatred to sin abstains from it, and out of love to God endeavours to keep his commandments, he is a true penitent, though he never lie upon the

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 wεoínσis kaì πappŋoía, 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

VOL. IX.