in Sin turn our Appetite from it, and our Grief quite remove our love for it; if our tears help to wash away our Sins, and to cleanse our guilty and polluted Souls, then however fharp or brackish they are, they are fanative and medicinal, and fo have a true vertue and efficacy in them, without which they are ufelefs and infignificant. 2. Merávala is an after-Thinking, or an after-Wisdom and Understanding, when the Sin we thought before fo charming and inviting, fo that it tempted us with its feeming Pleasure or Profit, or fome appearance of good, which was the reason we chofe and embraced it, we now fee and understand to be foolish and unreasonable, mifchievous and pernicious, and are under full convictions of the fad confequences and effects of it, and therefore have both wifhes and defires that we had never committed it, and purposes and refolutions not to be guilty of it again: Now this goes a great deal further than the other, but fill it goes no further than the Mind,and the inward Thoughts, Paffions and Affections there, which may be if not Infincere yet Ineffective. There must be fomething further to make up and perfect Repentance; which is 3. 'Asep and se,turning from Sin, and turning to God and Goodness. Thus the Scripture fpeaks moit clearly of Repentance,Ezek.18.21.If the wicked turn from all his fins that he hath committed,and doth that which is lawful and right, he shall furely live, he fhall not dye. Again at ver. 27. When the wicked turneth away from his wickedness, and doth that which is lawful and right, he fhall fave his foul alive. And at ver. 28. Becaufe he confidereth and turneth from all his tranfgreffions

greffions that he hath committed, he shall furely live, he shall not dye. So Acts 26. 20. That they fhould repent and turn to God, which are homonymous, and turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, ver. 18. This is leaving a wrong path or courfe of actions we have been engaged in, and entring upon a better. And this more fully declares the nature of Repentance, that 'tis an actual amendment and reformation of our Lives, a ceafing to do evil, and learning to do well, as the Prophet expreffes it, Ifa. 1. 16, 17. When they do good that are accustomed to do evil; as another Prophet, Jer. 13. 23. when they who have been bad in any inftance become good, this is the very effence of Repentance, as I thall further fhew you; 'tis Obedience after Difobedience, Vertue after Vice, Good after Evil, and these three together make up true Repentance, which is indeed the whole practical Condition of the Gofpel, as St. Paul fums it up.

SECT. II.

Kinds and Degrees of Repentance.

BUT

UT before I come to difcourfe fully of that, I must premnife fome Limits and Cautions about this Dury, or elfe we shall talk very confufedly about it in general, as belonging alike to all Perfons. Now there are feveral forts and kinds of Repentance, according to the feveral kinds and degrees of Sinners.

# Jace si noge TuThere

There are fome Sinners whofe Lives are like a leprous Body spread all over with Corruption and Filthinefs, as the Prophet describes the Wickedness of the Jews, Ifa. 1. 6. From the fole of the foot even to the head there is no foundnefs in it, but wounds, and bruifes, and putrifying fores; i. e. They have been wicked in the general tenor and habit of their Lives; and thefe must be wholly changed; the whole mafs being corrupted it must be quite altered: The whole frame of their Minds, and whole course of their Actions must be made quite otherwife; like. a Defiled Body they must be washed all over; or rather, like a dead Carcafs they must be raifed to life again, and restored wholly from their state of Death and Corruption which they were in before.

There are others who are not fo Diseased all over, but yet have fome mortal illness growing in fome part upon them, who are guilty of fome particular Sins, fome known and wilful Faults that destroy their good state, and put them into the rank, though not of the greatest Sinners, yet of fuch Sinners as shall not enter into Heaven,nor escape Eternal Wrath and Vengeance, unless they particularly Repent of them, and wholly forfake and leave them: And thus every one who is confcious to himfelf that he is, or has been ever guilty of any known and great Sin, whatever it be, though it should be but one fuch Sin, muft amend that, and must get off that particular illness, or else it will prove Deadly and Mortal if it continue upon him; for one fuch Disease, or one fuch Wound, whilft 'tis uncured upon the Soul, will kill and de

stroy

ftroy it as well as more. Though a Man may not be univerfally depraved, nor be wholly proftituted to Debauchery and Irreligion, yet if he will indulge himself in any known Sin, or in any particular Luft and Wickedness, he is in a loft and undone ftate, till he repents and wholly leaves that Sin: And if a Man is in a good ftate, and fall into a wilful and great Sin, as we know David did, that furely cuts him off for a time from his good state, and renders him lyable to God's Anger here, and to Mifery hereafter, till by a ferious and hearty Repentance he recovers himself, and is fo perfectly recovered from the Sin that he will never commit it again, whatever Temptation is offered to him.

There are other Sins which are of a lower and less heinous Nature, which do not destroy our good state, nor put us out of the Favour of God, nor exclude us out of Heaven; and thefe are fuch as very good Men are fubject to, and may not be free from whilft they are in this body of Sin and Corruption. As the most healthful and best Conftitutions may be subject to fome smaller Illneffes and Indifpofitions of Body, though not to great and mortal Difeafes, fo fome Frailties, Failures and Imperfections, will stick to the best of Men, though not any mortal and wilful Sins; and these Frailties and Infirmities are Sins in a ftrict fenfe, as coming fhort of perfect Obedience to the Divine Law; and these are in fome fense alfo to be repented of, i. e. we are to be fenfible of them, and forry for them, and we are every day to Pray to God to forgive us thefe

our Trefpaffes, and we

to endeavour to

overcome them as much as is poffible, and never let them grow, as they may by neglect, into wilful Sins; but thefe are all pardonable by the Mercy of God, and by vertue of the gracious Covenant which he hath made with us in Chrift Jefus, upon a general Repentance, without a perfect and particular amendment of all of them, which is utterly impoffible and inconfiftent with Human frailty and infirmity.

There is therefore a great difference to be made, in refpect of feveral kinds of Sins, and feveral forts of Sinners, of this great Duty of Repentance.

There are fome of whom the Scripture fays, that they need no Repentance, Luke 15. 7. i. e. who need not fuch a Repentance as fhall change and alter their Spiritual ftate, who never were in a bad flate, being early Baptized, nor never were guilty in their whole lives of any one fuch great and wilful, and heinous Sin, as put them into a damnable ftate: I hope there are not a few who are in this bleffed condition, and therefore who need not this greater Repentance, as I think I may call it, who by the bleffing of God, and by means of a very Vertuous and Religious Education, have been early trained up in the ways of Goodness, and never departed from them; who were fet right at first, and never wandred or frayed out of the paths of Vertue; whofe Feet never flipt fo far as to take hold of the paths of Death, or be caught in the fnares of the Devil; who never defiled themselves with any great Sin, but have preferved their Virgin-Purity, and have had no

foul