person he hath offended; and would gladly exchange all his titles and his trappings, for the rags and innocence of the poorest beggar. Repentance is a magistrate that exacts the strictest duty and humility, because the reward it gives is inestimable and everlasting; and the pain and punishment it redeems men from, is of the same continuance, and yet intolerable.

There are two imaginations or fancies (for opinions they cannot be) which insinuate themselves into the minds of men, who do not love to think of their own desperate condition. One is, that a general asking God forgiveness for all the sins he hath committed, without charging his memory with mentioning the particulars, is a sufficient repentance to procure God's pardon for them all: the other, that a man may heartily repent the having committed one particular sin, and thereupon obtain God's favour and forgiveness, though he practises other sins, which he believes are not so grievous, and so defers the present repentance of; that if he hath committed a murder, he can repent that, and resolve never to do the like again, and thereupon obtain his pardon, and yet retain his inclination to other excesses. Which two kinds of suggestion are so gross and ridiculous, (if any thing can be called ridiculous that hath relation to repentance) that no man is so impudent as to own

them, though in truth some modern casuists are not far from teaching the former; yet if we descend into ourselves, make that strict scrutiny and inquisition into every corner of our hearts, as true repentance doth exact from us, and will see performed by us, we shall find and must confess, that they are these and such like trivial and lamentable imaginations, which make us so unwary in all our actions, so uncircumspect throughout the course of our lives, and are the cause that in a whole nation of transcendent offenders, there are so very few who become true penitents, or manifest their repentance by those signs and marks with which it is always and cannot but be attended.

God forbid, that death-bed repentance should not do us good, or that death should approach towards any man who is without repentance; he who recollects himself best before, will have work enough for repentance in the last minute; and it is possible, and but possible, that he who hath never recollected himself before, may have the grace to repent so cordially then, and make such a saving reflection upon all the sins of his life, though he hath neither time or memory to number them, that he may obtain a full remission of them. Repentance indeed is so strong a balsam, that one drop of it put into the most noisome wound perfectly cures it. But that men, who cannot but ob.

serve how a little pain or sickness indisposes and makes them unfit for any transaction; who know how often the torment of the gout in the least joint, or a sudden pang of the stone, hath distracted them even in the most solemn and premeditated exercise of devotion, that they have retained no gesture or word fit for that sacrifice; I say, it is very strange that any such man, who hath himself undergone, or seen others undergo, such visitations, should believe it possible that upon his death-bed, in that agony of pain, in those inward convulsions, strugglings and torments of dissolution, which are the usual forerunners and messengers of death, or can presume upon, or hope for such a composure of mind and memory in that melancholy season, as to recollect and reflect upon all those particulars of his mispent life, as his departing soul must within a few minutes give an account, a very exact account of; and therefore it cannot be otherwise, and how much soever we disclaim the assertion, we are in truth so foolish as to be imposed upon by that pleasant imagination, that there goes much less to repentance than severe men would persuade us, and that a very short time, and as short an ejaculation, which shall be very hearty, and which we still think so much of in our intentions that we are sure we cannot forget them, will serve our turn, and will carry us fairly out of this world, and leave

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a very good report of our Christianity with the standers-by, who will give a fair testimony. If we did not think this, or did not think at all, which yet it may be is better than thinking this, we should not spend our time as we do, commit so many follies and wickednesses, and give no cause to the most charitable man to believe that we are in any degree sorry for either, when he sees us so constantly practise both, and live as we did really think that we are only to account for the last moment of our life, and therefore that it is enough if we provide that that shall be commendable and full of devotion.

The other as extravagant imagination, that a man may repent so heartily one particular sin, that he may be well satisfied that God hath accepted his humiliation and sealed his pardon, and yet retain and practise some other sins, of whose iniquity he is not yet thoroughly convinced, or of which he takes farther time to repent, hath gotten so much credit with many of us, who are willing to persuade other men, and it may be ourselves, that we do heartily detest and abominate some sin we have formerly practised, and have cordially repented it, though we do too much indulge some other natural infirmity, which leads us into great transgressions of another kind. If nothing of this argumentation did prevail upon us, we could not at the same

time pretend to have, with a grievous sense of our guilt, repented our rebellion, or any such act of outrage, and have washed our souls clean from that sin with our tears, when yet we retain our ambition, and have the same impatient appetite for preferment that we had before, and which it may be led us into that rebellion; that we have thoroughly repented every act of oppression that we have committed, though we have still avarice and desire to be rich, that hath not left us. It may be, the practice of repentance hath not been more obstructed by any thing, than by the customary discourse, and the senseless distinction, of true and false, perfect and imperfect repentance; whereas, if it be not true and perfect, it is not repentance; if it be not as it should be, it is not at all. There are indeed many preparations, many approaches towards it, which, well entered upon and pursued, will come to repentance at last; there must be recollection, and there must be sorrow, and sorrow stretched to the utmost extent, before it can arrive at repentance; and it must be repentance itself, none of those preparatives, that must carry us to heaven; and that repentance is no more capable of enlargement and diminution, than the joys of heaven are, which are still the same, neither more or less. If we do repent any one sin we have committed, we can have no more inclination to commit any other,