'You must not expect such fruits in a little time': Jeremy Taylor's sermon 'The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance'
But why may not we be saved as well as the thief upon the crosse? even because our case is nothing alike. When Christ dies once more for us, we may look for such another instance; not till then. But this thiefe did but then come to Christ; he knew him not before; and his case was as if a Turk or heathen should be converted to Christianity, and be baptized, and enter newly into the Covenant upon his deathbed. Then God pardons all his sins; and so God does to Christians when they are baptized, or first give up their names to Christ by a voluntarie confirmation of their baptismal vow: but when they have once entred into the Covenant, they must performe what they promise, and to what they are obliged. The thief had made no contract with God in Jesus Christ, and therefore failed of none; onely the defaillances of the state of ignorance Christ paid for at the thiefes admission. But we that have made a covenant with God in baptisme, and failed of it all our dayes, and then returne at night, when we cannot work; have nothing to plead for our selves, because we have made all that to be uselesse to us which God with so much mercy and miraculous wisdom, gave us to secure our interest, and hopes of heaven.
For Taylor, therefore, the lesson we cannot take from the Penitent Thief is a confidence that a deathbed repentance is salvific:
And therfore let no Christian man who hath covenanted with God to give him the service of his life, think that God will be answered with the sighs and prayers of a dying man; for all that great obligation which lies upon us cannot be transacted in an instant, when we have loaded our souls with sin, and made them empty of vertue; we cannot so soon grow up to a perfect man in Christ Jesus. You cannot have an apple, or a cherry, but you must stay its proper periods, and let it blossom and knot, and grow and ripen, and in due season we shall reap if we faint not (saith the Apostle) far much lesse may we expect that the fruits of repentance, and the issues and degrees of holinesse shall be gathered in a few dayes or houres; you must not expect such fruits in a little time, nor with little labour.
Calvin, by contrast, interprets the Penitent Thief as an encouragement to us. Crucially, however, Calvin does not present the Penitent Thief as an encouragement to deathbed repentance but to the faithful Christian:
But if a robber found the entrance into heaven so easy, because, while he beheld on all sides ground for total despair, he relied on the grace of Christ; much more will Christ, who has now vanquished death, stretch out his hand to us from his throne, to admit us to be partakers of life. For since Christ has nailed to his cross the handwriting which was opposed to us, and has destroyed death and Satan, and in his resurrection has triumphed over the prince of the world, it would be unreasonable to suppose that the passage from death to life will be more laborious and difficult to us than to the robber. Whoever then in dying shall commit to Christ, in true faith, the keeping of his soul, will not be long detained or allowed to languish in suspense; but Christ will meet his prayer with the same kindness which he exercised towards the robber [emphasis added].
Key here is Calvin's use of "us". I cannot see how it can be interpreted as 'anyone' rather than 'faithful Christians'. This is made clearer as Calvin continues:
We ought likewise to observe by what keys the gate of heaven was opened to the robber; for neither papal confession nor satisfactions are here taken into account, but Christ is satisfied with repentance and faith, so as to receive him willingly when he comes to him. And this confirms more fully what I formerly suggested, that if any man disdain to abide by the footsteps of the robber, and to follow in his path, he deserves everlasting destruction, because by wicked pride he shuts against himself the gate of heaven. And, certainly, as Christ has given to all of us, in the person of the robber, a general pledge of obtaining forgiveness, so, on the other hand, he has bestowed on this wretched man such distinguished honor, in order that, laying aside our own glory, we may glory in nothing but the mercy of God alone. If each of us shall truly and seriously examine the subject, we shall find abundant reason to be ashamed of the prodigious mass of our crimes, so that we shall not be offended at having for our guide and leader a poor wretch, who obtained salvation by free grace [emphasis added].
We have seen in previous weeks that Calvin's definition of repentance necessarily includes "the mortification of our flesh and the old man, and the quickening of the Spirit". When, therefore, Calvin declares that "Christ is satisfied with repentance and faith",
The point of the Penitent Thief for Calvin, then, is - as with Taylor - not to encourage a reliance on deathbed repentance but, rather, to encourage and comfort us that at the point of death we too, with the Penitent Thief, can trust in Christ our Redeemer. This, it is true, is different to Taylor's emphasis that "our case is nothing alike" that of the Penitent Thief. Calvin, by contrast, points to a similarity - but, in doing so, he does not undermine Taylor's central contention, that repentance and faith are to mark the Christian life, and that with this "Christ is satisfied". To again quote Calvin:
the life of a Christian man is constant study and exercise in mortifying the flesh, until it is certainly slain, and the Spirit of God obtains dominion in us. Wherefore, he seems to me to have made most progress who has learned to be most dissatisfied with himself. He does not, however, remain in the miry clay without going forward; but rather hastens and sighs after God, that, ingrafted both into the death and the life of Christ, he may constantly meditate on repentance. Unquestionably those who have a genuine hatred of sin cannot do otherwise: for no man ever hated sin without being previously enamored of righteousness.
Calvin, no less than Taylor, does not regard the Penitent Thief as encouragement of deathbed repentance precisely because Calvin, like Taylor, understands repentance to necessarily include a life-long mortification of the flesh, a life-long engrafting into the Christ Crucified and Risen. As Taylor pithily put it, "all that great obligation which lies upon us cannot be transacted in an instant".
In conclusion, therefore, this most controversial of Taylor's sermons is, I think, actually not that controversial. It certainly shares many concerns with Calvin, not the least of which is the call to an authentic, life-long repentance. In both we see the reality and significance of life-long discipleship, as grace works within us, preparing for the life of the world to come.
This renewal, indeed, is not accomplished in a moment, a day, or a year, but by uninterrupted, sometimes even by slow progress God abolishes the remains of carnal corruption in his elect, cleanses them from pollution, and consecrates them as his temples, restoring all their inclinations to real purity, so that during their whole lives they may practice repentance, and know that death is the only termination to this warfare - Calvin;
Suffer therefore not your selves to be deceived by false principles, and vain confidences; for no man can in a moment root out the long contracted habits of vice, nor upon his deathbed make use of all that variety of preventing, accompanying and persevering grace, which God gave to man in mercy - Taylor.
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