T

may still reflect honour upon God, that he confess his justice in punishing, that he acknowledge himself to have deserved the worst of evils, that he heartily be lieve and profess that if he perish finally, yet that God ought to be glorified by that sad event, and that he hath truly merited so intolerable a calamity: that he also be put to make acts of election and preference, professing that he would willingly endure all temporal evils rather than be in the disfavour of God or in the state of sin; for by this last instance he will be quitted from the suspicion of leaving sin for temporal respects, because he, by an act of imagination of feigned presence of the object to him, entertains the temporal evil that he may leave the sin; and therefore, unless he be an hypocrite, does not leave the sin to be quit of the temporal evil. And as for the other motive of leaving sin out of the fear of hell, because that is an evangelical motive conveyed to us by the spirit of God and is immediate to the love of God; if the schoolmen had pleased, they might have reckoned it as the handmaid, and of the retinue of contrition: but the more the considerations are sublimed above this, of the greater effect and the more immediate to pardon will be the repentance.

8. Let the sick persons do frequent actions of repentance by way of prayer for all those sins which are spiritual, and in which no restitution or satisfaction material can be made, and whose contrary acts cannot in kind be exercised. For penitential prayers in some cases are the only instance of repentance that

F

can be. An envious man, if he gives God hearty thanks for the advancement of his brother, hath done an act of mortification of his envy, as directly as corporal austerities are an act of chastity, and an enemy to uncleanness: and if I have seduced a person that is dead or absent, if I cannot restore him to sober counsels by my discourse and undeceiving him, I can only repent of that by way prayer: and intemperance is no way to be rescinded or punished by a dying man, but by hearty prayers. Prayers are a great help in all cases; in some they are proper acts of virtue, and direct enemies to sin: But although alone and in long continuances, they alone can cure some one or some few little habits, yet they can never alone change the state of the man; and therefore are intended to be a suppletory to the imperfections of other acts; and by that reason are the proper and most pertinent employment of a clinick or death-bed penitent.

9. In those sins whose proper cure is mortification corporal, the sick man is to supply that part of his repentance by a patient submission to the rod of sickness: for sickness does the work of penances, or sharp afflictions and dry diet, perfectly well: to which if we also put our wills, and make it our act by an afterelection, by confessing the justice of God, by bearing it sweetly, by begging it may be medical, there is nothing wanting to the perfection of this part, but that God confirm our patience, and hear our prayers, *When the guilty man runs to punishment, the injured *Quid debent læsi facere, ubi fei ad poenam confugirnt.

person is prevented, and hath no whither to go but to forgiveness.

10. I have learned but of one suppletory more for the perfection and proper exercise of a sick man's repentance; but it is such a one as will go a great way in the abolition of our past sins, and making our peace with God, even after a less severe life; and that is, that the sick man do some heroical actions in the matter of charity, or religion, of justice, or severity. There is a story of an infamous thief, who, having begged his pardon of the emperor Mauricius, was yet put into the hospital of St. Sampson, where he so plentifully bewailed his sins in the last agonies of his death, that the physician who attended found him unexpectedly dead, and over his face a handkerchief bathed in tears; and soon after somebody or other pretended a revelation of this man's beatitude It was a rare grief that was noted in this man, which begot in that age a confidence of his being saved; and that confidence (as things then went) was quickly called a revelation. But it was a stranger severity which is related by Thomas Cantipratanus, concerning a young gentlemen condemned for robbery and violence, who had so deep a sense of his sin, that he was not content with a single death, but begged to be tormented and cut in pieces joint by joint, with intermedial senses, that he might by such a smart signify a greater sorrow. Some have given great estates to the poor and to religion; some have built colleges for holy persons; many have suffered martyrdom: And though those that died

1

under the conduct of the Maccabees in defence of their country and religion, had pendants on their breasts consecrated to the idols of the Jamnences, yet that they gave their lives in such a cause with so great a duty, (the biggest things they could or do give) it was esteemed to prevail hugely towards the pardon and acceptation of their persons. An heroic action of virtue is a huge compendium of religion: For if it be attained to by the usual measures and progress of a Christian, from inclination to act, from act to habit, from habit to abode, from abode to reiguing, from reigning to perfect possession, from possession to extraordinary emanations, that is to heroic actions, then it must needs do the work of men, by being so great towards the work of God. But if a man comes thither per saltum, or on a sudden, (which is seldom seen) then it supposes the man always well inclined, but abused by accident of hope, by confidence or ignorance; then it supposes the man for the present in a great fear of evil, and a passionate desire of pardon; it supposes his apprehensions great, and his time little; and what the event of that will be, no man can tell. But it is certain that to some purposes God will account for our religion on our death-bed, not by the measure of our time, but the eminency of affection (as said Celestine the first;) that is, supposing the man in the state of grace, or in the revealed possibility of salvation, then an heroical act hath the reward of a longer series of good actions, in an even and ordinary course of virtue.

11. In what can remain for the perfecting a sick man's repentance, he is to be helped by the minisetries of a spiritual guide.

SECT. VII

Acts of repentance by Way of Prayer and Ejaculation, to be used espicially by Old Men in their Age, and by all Men in their Sickness.

(Lam. iii. 40-44.) Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens. We have transgressed and rebelled, and thou hast not pardoned. Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us; thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. O cover not thyself with a cloud; but let our prayers pass through.

(Job. vii. 20, 21.) I have sinned, what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burthen to myself? And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity; For now shall I sleep in the dust, and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.

(Lam. i. 18, 40.) The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against his commandments. Hear I pray, all ye people, behold my sorrow. Behold, O Lord, I am in distress, my bowels are troubled, my heart is turned within me: For I have greviously rebelled.

(Lam. v. 19, 20—22.) Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation. Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time? Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and so shall we be turned: Renew our days as of old. O reject me not utterly, and be not exceeding wrath against thy servant.