facta videam? saith he in the comedy: Protestatio contra factum non valet, saith the law; and why should I believe, that that man believes obedience to Christ the only way to present and eternal happiness, whom I see, wittingly, and willingly, and constantly, and customarily, to disobey him? The time was, that we all knew, that the king could reward those that did him service, and punish those that did him disservice, and then all men were ready to obey his command, and he was a rare man that durst do any thing to his face that offended him. Beloved, if we did but believe in God, so much as most subjects do in their king; did we as we verily believe, that God could and would make us perfectly happy, if we serve him, though all the world conspire to make us miserable; and that he could and would make us miserable, if we serve him not, though all the world should conspire to make us happy; how were it possible, that to such a faith our lives should not be conformable? Who was there ever so madly in love with a present penny, as to run the least hazard of the loss of 10,000l. a year to gain it, or not readily to part with it upon any probable hope, or light persuasion, much more a firm belief, that by doing so he should gain 100,000l. Now, beloved, the happiness which the servants of Christ are promised in the Scripture, we all pretend to believe, that it exceeds the conjunction of all the good things of the world, and much more such a proportion as we may possibly enjoy, infinitely more than 10,000l. a year, or 100,000l. doth a penny; for 100,000l. is but a penny so many times over, and 10,000l. a year is worth but a certain number of pence; but between heaven

and earth, between finite and infinite, between eternity and a moment, there is utterly no proportion; and therefore, seeing we are so apt, upon trifling occasions, to hazard this heaven for this earth, this infinite for this finite, this all for this nothing; is it not much to be feared, that though many of us pretend to much faith, we have indeed but very little or none at all? The sum of all, which hath been spoken concerning this point, is this-Were we firmly persuaded, that obedience to the gospel of Christ is the true and only way to present and eternal happiness (without which faith no man living can be justified), then the innate desire of our own happiness could not but make us studious inquirers of the will of Christ, and conscionable performers of it: but there are (as experience shews) very few, who make it their care and business to know the will of Christ; and of those few again, very many, who make no conscience at all of doing what they know; therefore, though they profess and protest they have faith, yet their protestations are not to be regarded against their actions; but we may safely and reasonably conclude what was to be concluded, that the doctrine of Christ, amongst an infinity of professors, labours with great scarcity of true, serious, and hearty believers; and that herein also we accomplish St. Paul's prediction, “Having à form of godliness, but denying," &c.

But perhaps the truth and reality of our repentance may make some kind of satisfaction to God Almighty for our hypocritical dallying with him in all the rest. Truly, I would be heartily glad it were so; but I am so far from being of this faith, that herein I fear we are most of all hypocritical,

and that the generality of professors is so far from a real practice of true repentance, that scarce one in a hundred understands truly what it is.

Some satisfy themselves with a bare confession and acknowledgment, either that they are sinners in general, or that they have committed such and such, sins in particular; which acknowledgment comes not yet from the heart of a great many, but only from their lips and tongues: for how many are they, that do rather complain and murmur, that they are sinners, than acknowledge and confess it; and make it, upon the matter, rather their unhappiness and misfortune, than their true fault, that they are so? Such are all they who impute all their commissions of evil to the unavoidable want of restraining grace, and all their omission of good to the like want of effectual exciting grace: all such as pretend, that the commandments of God are impossible to be kept any better than they are kept; and that the world, the flesh, and the devil, are even omnipotent enemies; and that God neither doth, nor will, give sufficient strength to resist and overcome them; all such as lay all their faults upon Adam, and say, with those rebellious Israelites (whom God assures, that they neither had nor should have just reason to say so), that their fathers had eaten sour grapes, and their teeth were set on edge: lastly, all such as lay their sins upon Divine prescience, and predestination, saying with their tongues, O what wretched sinners have we been! but in their hearts, How could we help it! We are predestinate to it, we could not do otherwise.

All such as seriously persuade themselves, and think to hide their nakedness with such fig-leaves

as these, can no more be said to acknowledge themselves guilty of a fault, than a man that was born blind, or lame, with the stone or gout, can accuse himself with any fault for being born so: well may such an one complain, and bemoan himself, and say, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this unhappiness? But such a complaint is as far from being a true acknowledgment of any faults, as a bare acknowledgment of a fault is from true repentance. For, to confess a fault, is to acknowledge, that freely and willingly, without any constraint, or unavoidable. necessity, we have transgressed the law of God,. it being in our power, by God's grace, to have done otherwise. To aggravate this fault, is to confess we have done so when we might easily. have avoided it, and had no great nor violent temptation to it: to pretend any great difficulty, in the matter, is to excuse and extenuate it but to say, that, all things considered, it was absolutely impossible for you to avoid it, is flatly to deny it. Others there are, that think they have done enough, if to confession of sin they add some sorrow for it; if, when the present fit of sin is past, and they are returned to themselves, the sting remaining breed some remorse of conscience, some complaints against their wickedness and folly for having done so, and some intentions to forsake it, though vanishing and ineffectual. These heat-drops, this morning dew of sorrow, though it presently vanish, and they return to their sin again upon the next temptation, "as a dog to his vomit," when the pang is over; yet in the pauses between, while they are in their good mood, they conceive themselves to have very

true, and very good repentance; so that if they should have the good fortune to be taken away in one of these intervalla, one of these sober moods, they should certainly be saved; which is just as if a man in a quartan ague, or the stone, or gout, should think himself rid of his disease as oft as he is out of his fit.

But if repentance were no more but so, how could St. Paul have truly said, that "godly sorrow worketh repentance?" (2 Cor. vii. 10.) Every man knows, that nothing can work itself. The architect is not the house which he builds, the father is not the son which he begets, the tradesman is not the work which he makes; and therefore, if sorrow, godly sorrow, worketh repentance, certainly sorrow is not repentance. The same St. Paul tells us in the same place, that "the sorrow of the world worketh death;" and you will give me leave to conclude from hence, therefore it is not death; and what shall hinder me from concluding thus also; godly sorrow worketh repentance," therefore it is not repentance?

To this purpose it is worth observing, that when the Scripture speaks of that kind of repentance, which is only sorrow for something done, and wishing it undone, it constantly useth the word μerauéλeia, to which forgiveness of sins is nowhere promised. So it is written of Judas, the son of perdition, (Matt. xxvii. 5.) μɛrauɛλnθεὶς ἀπέτρεψε, "he repented, and went and hanged himself," and so constantly in other places. But that repentance, to which remission of sins and salvation are promised, is perpetually expressed by the word perάvota, which signifies a thorough change of the heart and soul, of the life and ac