Direct. V. Keep up a believing foresight of the state which death will send you to. And then if you have the use of reason, hell at least will hold your hands, and make you afraid of venturing upon death. What repentance are you like to have, when you die in the very act of sin? and when an unmortified lust or love of the world, doth hurry you to the halter by sinful discontent? and what hope of pardon without repentance? How exceeding likely therefore is it, that whenever you put yourselves out of your present pain and trouble you send your souls to endless torments! And will it ease you to pass from poverty or crosses into hell? Or will you damn your souls, because another wrongeth you? Oh the madness of a sinner! Who will you think hath wronged you most, when you feel hell-fire? Are you weary of your lives, and will you go to hell for ease? Alas, how quickly would you be glad to be here again, in a painfuller condition than that which you were so weary of! yea, and to endure it a thousand years! Suppose you saw hell before your eyes, would you leap into it? Is not time of repentance a mercy to be valued? Yea, a little reprieve from endless misery is better than nothing. What need you make haste to come to hell? Will it not be soon enough, if you stay thence as long as you can? And why will you throw away your hopes, and put yourselves past all possibility of recovery, before God put you so himself?
Direct. VI. Understand the wonders of mercy revealed, and bestowed on mankind in Jesus Christ; and understand the tenor of the covenant of grace. The ignorance of this is it that keepeth a bitter taste upon your spirits; and maketh you cry out, Forsaken and undone; when such miracles of mercy are wrought for your salvation. And the ignorance of this is it that maketh you foolishly cry out, There is no hope; the day of grace is past; it is too late; God will never show me mercy! When his word assureth all that will believe it, that "whoever confesseth and forsaketh his sins, shall have mercy," Prov. xxviii. 13. "And if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive," 1 John i. 9. "And that whoever will, may freely drink of the waters of life," Rev. xxii. 17. "And that whoever believeth in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life," John iii. 16. I have no other hope of my salvation, but that gospel which promiseth pardon and salvation unto all, that at any time repent and turn to God by faith in Christ: and I dare lay my salvation on the truth of this, that Christ never rejected any sinner, how great soever, that at any time in this life was truly willing to come to him, and to God by him. "He that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out," John vi. 37. But the malicious devil would fain make God seem odious to the soul, and representeth love itself as our enemy, that we might not love him! Despair is such a part of hell, that if he could bring us to it, he would think he had us half in hell already: and then he would urge us to despatch ourselves, that we might be there indeed, and our despair might be uncurable. How blind is he that seeth not the devil in all this!
CHAPTER IX.
DIRECTIONS FOR THE FORGIVING OF ENEMIES, AND THOSE THAT INJURE US; AGAINST WRATH, AND MALICE, AND REVENGE, AND PERSECUTION.
It is not only actual murder which is forbidden in the sixth commandment, but also all inordinate wrath, and malice, and desires of revenge, and injuring the person of our neighbour or our enemy: for so the Prophet and Judge of the church hath himself expounded it, Matt. v. 21, 22. Anger hath a hurting inclination, and malice is a fixed anger, and revenge is the fruit of both or either of them. He that will be free from injurious actions, must subdue the wrath and malice which is their cause. Heart murders and injuries must be carefully rooted up; "For out of the heart proceed all evil thoughts and murders," &c. Matt. xv. 19. This is the fire of hell on which an evil tongue is set, Jam. iii. 6. And this must be quenched if you would be innocent.
Direct. I. See God in your neighbour, and love him for that of God which is upon him. If he be holy, he hath the moral image of God. If he be unholy, he hath his natural image as he is a man. He is not only God's creature, but his reasonable creature, and the lord of his inferior works: and art thou a child of God, and yet canst not see him, and love him in his works? Without God he is nothing, whom thou art so much offended with: and though there be somewhat in him which is not of God, which may deserve thy hatred, yet that is not his substance or person: hate not, or wrong not that which is of God. It would raise in you such a reverence, as would assuage your wrath, if you could but see God in him that you are displeased with.
Direct. II. To this end observe more the good which is in your neighbour, than the evil. Malice overlooketh all that is good and amiable, and can see nothing but that which is bad and detestable: it hearkeneth more to them that dispraise and open the faults of others, than to those that praise them and declare their virtues: nor that good and evil must be confounded; but the good as well as the evil must be acknowledged. We have more use ourselves for the observation of their virtues than of their faults; and it is more our duty: and were it never so little good that is in them, the right observing of it, at least would much diminish your dislike.
Direct. III. Learn but to love your neighbour as yourself, and this will make it easy to you both to forbear him and forgive him. With yourself you are not apt to be so angry. Against yourself you bear no malice, nor desire no revenge that shall do you hurt. As you are angry with yourself penitently for the faults you have committed, but not so as to desire your own destruction, or final hurt; but with such a displeasure as tendeth to your recovery; so also must you do by others.
Direct. IV. To this end be sure to mortify your selfishness. For it is the inordinate respect that men have to themselves, which maketh them aggravate the faults of all that are against them, or offend them. Be humble and self-denying, and you will think yourselves so mean and inconsiderable, that no fault can be very great, nor deserve much displeasure, merely as it is against you. A proud, self-esteeming man is easily provoked, and hardly reconciled without great submission; because he thinketh so highly of himself, that he thinketh heinously of all that is said or done against him; and he is so over-dear to himself, that he is impatient with his adversary.