I exactly fuited and fitted to the Moral and Religious Deserts, Capacities and Qualifications of all Rational Beings in which they shall be fixt to all Eternity without alteration, though perhaps not without further improvements and gradual rifings and fallings, according to the Nature of either of those States. Thefe Thoughts have been a great cafe and fatisfaction to my felf in the Conception of the great and amazing things of another World; and I therefore communicate them not only on the fore-mentioned account, but because they may be fo to others who confider those greatest Objects of Meditation with any penetration of thought, according to the best helps we have of Philofophy and Scripture, and I am perfwaded it would be good Service to Religion if it were thus fairly reconciled in all the revealed Truths and Articles of it to the thoughts of inquifitive Men as I doubt not but it may be, but this is a fubject of another Nature which I am not now to meddle withal. СНАР. CHAP. VI. Practical Rules and Directions con cerning the Particular Exercife of Repentance. I Shall now confider the Particular Exercife of Repentance taken as a fingle Duty diftinct from all others of Obedience, which are in the largest fenfe involved in it, and without which it is not effectual to Pardon and Salvation, as I have all along fhown; but Repentance taken fingly for a particular act of a Sinner juft ftruck and affected with a fenfe of his Sins, and exercifing at fet times Penitential Reflections and proper Actions upon the thoughts and remembrance of them; this which is often called Repentance, and is fo in fome fenfe, but not fufficient to compleat this Duty and to entitle us to all the effects of Repentance as they are promised to it in Scripture, in a more large and comprehenfive Notion, as including a good good Life and all manner of Obedience after we have failed and come fhort in any point: This which I would call Penitence or Penance, as being a Penal Exercife or Penitential Courfe and Difcipline fit for a Sinner to go through, after he has commit ted any great Sin, or whenever he fe riously remembers and confiders and recollects as he ought often to do with himself, the most confiderable mifcarriages of his Life: This confifts in thefe following things. 1. In confeffing of his Sin. 2. In inward and outward Sorrow In these the Scripture and the Church and the cuftom of good Men in all Ages have placed this Exercise of Repentance as confifting of fuch Penitential Acts, not as a permanent Habit of renewed Obedience and recovered Vertue, nor as if the Effence or the formal Vertue and proper fruits of of it lay in these but in Reformation of Heart and Life, Converfion and Obedience to God; but these are the buds and bloffoms of those fruits of Repentance, the feeds and the signs of it, or at leaft the outward concómitants and attendants of it, and fuch a retinue as are proper to go along with it, for the folemnity at leaft and decent performance of it if not as abfolutely neceffary to the thing it felf. Neceffary generally in private but alwayes in publick Acts or Expreffions of Repentance, wherein a publick reparation and fatisfaction is to be given to Gods Honour and Authority, his Judgments to be averted and his Anger deprecated, and a common fenfe and apprehenfion of all this to be promoted and inculcated among others as in publick Penances and National Repentances, and therefore we read chiefly of thefe upon fuch occafions, both in Scripture and Ecclefiaftical Writers. Open Sins are a difhonouring of God, an affronting and defpifing his Power and Authority, a fetting up our Wills againft his, a gratifying and indulging our felves in undue liberties and unlawful inclina nations of Body Now 'tis fit therefore in our Repentance for them wherein we make what amends wé can to God and repair the injury we have done him, and undo the Sin as far as we are able, and fhow our utmoft difpleasure against it, that we fhould fall down before him and confess it, and be forry for it, and humble our felves to him, and own our vilenefs and wretchednefs and unworthinefs, and express the deepest resentments of it, and fhow our anger against our felves, and revenge it very feverely, and afflict our Souls and our Bodies with fomething that shall not be very grateful to them, nor pleasant and acceptable to our Senses. The defign of all this is to beget in our Mind fuch thoughts of our Sins, and fuch paffions and averfations against them, or at least to let those inward thoughts and paffions which are fuppofed to arife in it from the reflection upon them to have fuch outward vent and expreffions as Natu rally belong to them, and as other objects of grief and trouble are apt to excite in them; for without those inward thoughts and paffions which are the |
