ceafe from acting, and certainly if any thing be in our power, our outward actions are, and we fhall find that the most habitual Sin will fade and wither, as being without that recruit which should feed and nourish it; for all Habits grow by new and repeated Acts, as a Tree by the acceffion of new fap into its Branches; and if they be not fupplyed with thefe, they will decay and dye of themselves. If we can but put a little flop to our Lufts in their violent career, and check but a few acts of them, this will keep them from being fo unruly and ungovernable, till in time we may wholly Mafter and Conquer them. The Sinner must first keep himself from the outward act, from touching the unclean thing wherewith he was defiled; he must refrain his feet from every evil way, and go on no further in a wrong path, that fo he may return in to the ways of Vertue. If his Repentance does not make him break off every Tranfgreffion, and keep him back from every Sin, and restrain him from the commiffion of what he was formerly guilty of, though it makes him never fo much troubled and diffatisfied with what he does, though he commits it with never fo much reluctancy, and is never fo forrowful for it after he has done it; yet if he ftill commits it, and repeats it when a Temptation is offered to him, he is very far from true Repentance; and let him be never fo unwillingly drag'd to it, fo that the Evil which he doth he would not, let him not comfort himself with that, for fo long as he doth it he is a flave to it, and he is led captive by it fo ftro gly, that it over-powers even his Confcience and his Reafon, and till he can break

loofe

loose from it, fo as not to commit it again, he is a fervant of fin, and under the greatest bondage and fervitude. Let a Man have never fo much diflike of his Sins, and pretend never fo much to abominate and abhor them in his thoughts, yet if he commits them in his practice, 'tis but proteftatio, as we fay, contra factum, but a fruitless Repentance that ftill brings forth the unfruitful works of darkness; for 'tis not what Men think of their Sins, but their not doing of them, that is the true fruit of Repentance.

II. As we must leave the Sin, so we must practice the contrary Vertue. And this will be more easily and readily done; for if the Habit of Vice and Wickednefs be deftroyed, that of Vertue will follow of courfe; as if the Disease be removed, Health is restored. Virtus eft Vitium fugere,The very leaving of Vice is the coming to Vertue. For the Mind cannot stand still, but is a moving and an active Principle, and if it be not Vicious it will be Vertuous, it cannot ftand neuter and indifferent to those two, but will neceffarily take either one fide or the other. He that leaves off Drunkenness, by fo doing becomes fober. He that will no longer defraud muft neceffarily become juft. The contrary Vertue does in moft cafes fucceed the forfaken Vice, as Light does fucceed Darkness, and Day Night.It does not I confefs do it always; for it does not neceffarily follow that he who does not Swear fhould be Devout, nor that he who 'does not cheat should be Charitable; nor that he who will not Blafpheme God fhould Worhip him; and yet thofe are very meet and worthy

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worthy fruits of Repentance, that he who has prophaned the Sacred Name of God by cuftomary Swearing, fhould not only leave off that upon his Repentance, but with a Religious dread, and awful veneration fhould ever after Adore and Worship him; and he that has been Unjust and Unrighteous, fhould not only break off his fin by Righteoufnefs, but by fhewing Mercy to the Poor, Dan. 4.27. That as Sin did before abound, fo now the contrary Grace and Vertue may much more abound, as the Apostle speaks in another cafe, and as he fays in the like cafe to the Roman Chriftians who were once impure Gentiles, As ye have yielded your members fervants to uncleannefs, and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members fervants to righteousness unto holiness, Rom. 6. 19. That now being made free from fin, and become fervants to God, ye may have your fruit unto holiness, ver. 22. and that this fruit may be the greater because of the former barrennefs and unfruitfulnefs which we were guilty of. He that has neglected any neceffary Duty, and fo is guilty of a Sin of Omiffion, is bound to Amend and Repent of that as much as of any other Sin, and fo Repentance will oblige him to the practice of all manner of Vertue, as well as the quitting and abandoning of all manner of Sin. The true Penitent must not only pluck up all the Habits of Sin in his Soul, and weed out all thofe venomous feeds of Wickednefs that have grown up into finful practices, but he must have all manner of Vertue planted in his Heart, and he muft bring forth the fruits of his Repentance in an univerfal Goodness and Holinefs of Life, and unless it does fo, it is not

as

as I fhall fhew you, true and perfect Repentance, because nothing elfe can restore the Mind to a foundness and a good state. And Repentance is like a recovery of Health after Sickness. The Disease must be thoroughly got off, the fickly matter must be discharged, the illness must be cured and removed, and when that is done, the Patient muft get his former ftrength, and be able to perform all the proper and vital Operations, and till he does this we cannot fay he is well: So till a Sinner has wholly got rid of his paft Sins, and has utterly relinquish'd and forfaken them, till he has purged them all out by Repentance, and has brought himself, by the Grace of God, to fuch a Spiritual ftrength and foundness, as to perform the proper Duties and Operations of the new Life, and to practice thofe Vertues which were contrary to his former Vices, he cannot be faid to be recovered to a ftate of Health and Soundness, and true Repentance. He may be under a method of Cure indeed, as a fick Man is under a course of Phyfick, and in fome fair hopes and a likely way of recovery before this; and this is often called Repentance; and 'tis a part of it but not the whole : But the great Work is not done, nor is his Repentance finifh'd and perfected till he is come to this, to forfake every former Sin, and practice the contrary Vertue. How long he is to do this, I fhall not determine, as I cannot tell how long a Man must be free from a Disease before he is well, and how much time exactly there must be between a state of Sickness and that of Health. 'Tis hard to fix the indivifible point between those two states; and fo it is between a ftate of

Sin and a perfect Repentance of it; but all Men can still know pretty eafily when they are well, and fo they may by this fure mark when they have truly and fully Repented, namely, when they have thus brought forth the fruits of Repentance, Matth. 3. 8. Repentance is not to be known, neither is it to be counted true, or at leaft perfect without thofe : Thofe Fruits of it indeed are not different from the thing it felf, they are not only Signs, and outward Marks and Indications of it, as the Fruit of a Tree is a fign that the Tree is alive, for here the Tree would not be alive at all, if it were without that Fruit. Thefe are not then only a fign that his Repentance is true; but they are like our Breath, which is not only a fign that we are alive, but that very thing by which we live. True and perfect Repentance confits in thofe, and is never without them; as ! fhall fhew by confidering what an imperfect thing all the Repentance is which is done in a Mans Mind, without any effect upon his Life and Actions.

SECT. IV.

Mental Repentance imperfect without Actual.

A

LL that Sorrow and Trouble for Sin which a Sinner feels in his own Soul, all that Conviction and Condemnation of his ill ftate and fad condition, by reafon of his past Sins when he reflects upon them, and all thofe Vows, and Purposes and Refolutions of leaving his Sins, and living better hereafter, though they are good Symptoms and good Beginnings

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