Hear for the time to come;" and especially for sick. beds, when you cannot get sermons to hear. Then it is that you ought to live and feed upon the sermons you have heard." 5. Lay up a stock of prayers. Be much in wrest ling with God for help and through-bearing in the day of affliction; and so you may expect the gracious returns thereof in the day of calamity. 6. Provide a stock of promises. Be now gathering these sweet cordials from God's word, lay them up in your heart and memory, and they will be very refreshing and supporting to you in the day of affliction. DIRECT. IX. Let those who are in health set about the work of repentance, and turning to God in Christ, timeously and quickly; and beware of delaying this work until the time of sickness and of dying. GOD'S YOD'S command to you is, to set about the work presently without any delay, Heb. iii. 15. " To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Matth. xxi. 28. "Go, work to-day in my vineyard." Eccles. xii. 1. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." Well, God's voice to you, O man, in health, is to-day. But the devil's voice is tomorrow. And which of the two will you hearken to? Surely it is your wisdom to obey the voice of your Creator and friend, and not of your enemy and destroyer. Why? to day thou art in health, to-morrow thou mayest be in sickness; to day thou art on earth, to-morrow thou mayest be in hell; to day Christ is inviting you to come to him, to-morrow he may be sentencing you to depart from him. And consider, that the devil, who tempts you to delay this day, will be as ready to tempt you the same to-morrow; and so the devil's to-morrow will never come. It will still be to-morrow with him to the last hour, so that he may get you cheated out of your whole time and salvation together. Here I shall endeavour two things; 1. Bring argu ments to persuade you to repent and close with the of fers of Christ patiently, without any delay, as God requirés. 2. Shew the evil and danger of delaying till the time of sickness and of dying. As to the first, viz. Arguments for present repentance, and against delaying the work: ཕྱྭ 1st, Consider the uncertainty of your life, and time to repent. Your life is but a vapour, a little warm breath that is going out and in at your nostrils, which may be stopt by death ere you be aware; thou knowest not what will be to-morrow, Prov. xxvii. 1. It was the saying of a godly man, when invited to a feast upon the morrow, "I have not had a morrow for these many years." It was a bad use these Epicureans made of this uncertainty, Isa. xxii. 13. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die." It is much wiser to say, "Let us pray, and turn to the Lord, for to-morrow we shall die." Nay, you have no security for one hour to repent in; for God hath a thousand diseases and accidents ready to stop your breath, and end your days, whenever he pleaseth to give them orders. There are many secure sinners, who presume on long life, but there are none nearer destruction than such; for God loves to disappoint these that promise themselves a long life in sin and impenitency, as he did that rich man who was laying up for many years, Luke xii. 19. "This night shall thy soul be required of thee." And O what a dark and dismal night will it be, if death come before thy repentance? O man, thou never didst lie down one night with assurance of rising again; thou never heardst one sermon with assurance of hearing another; thou never didst draw one breath with assurance of drawing another! What madness is it then to delay salvation work one day or hour longer, and so to leave the weightiest matter in the world at the greatest uncertainty? 2dly, Consider that though God in his wonderful mercy and patience should prolong your days, yet the longest life is short enough for the work you have to o, suppose you begin it presently. Nay, had you Me thusalem's years to spend, they would be no more than sufficient to repent and mourn for the sins and guilt which you have been so long contracting; to perform and amend the many things that have been amiss; to perform all the duties incumbent on you; to make sure your calling and election, and put your soul in a good posture and preparation for an eternal state, and get them made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Now, do you think that all this work can be done in an instant, or in time of sickness, or old age, when you are hardly fit to do any thing? When a man's spirit is unable to bear the infirmities of nature, how will he be able to bear the lashes of a guilty conscience or a wounded spirit? When the understanding is weak, the memory frail, the will obstinately bent the wrong way, by a long custom of sinning, and neglecting of duty; will that be a fit time to begin the work of repentance, and conversion to God? When nature is decayed, and the candle of life just sinking in the socket, will you begin then to act for God, and make your light shine before men to his glory? O remember, your work is long, your time is short, and though you begin this very hour, you will have no time to spare. 3dly, Delay not this work, because it is not in your power to do it when you please. It is a delusion of the devil, to imagine you may repent when you will. No, no; it is God only that giveth repentance, and he gives it when, and to whom he pleaseth, Acts v. 31. And it is a mere peradventure, if ever he gives it to a delaying sinner, 2 Tim. ii. 25. When is it that you may have hopes he will give repentance, but when he calls you to it, and prescribes means to be used for that end? Now, that is, "To-day, to-day, if ye will hear his voice: Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." To-day, when God is calling, and the Spirit striving, is the time of finding the Lord, and getting repentance from him. To-morrow, it may be too late; the Lord's hand may be closed, and the door of mercy shut. If you refuse the Spirit when strives with you, he may leave you, and never put another serious thought in your heart of turning to the Lord. O defer not seeking repentance till it be too late, for there is a time when the Lord will not be found, and then repentance will not be found, though you seek it with tears. Indeed, God hath promised mercy to penitent sinners; but he hath no where promised the aids of his grace and Spirit to them that put off their repentance; and he hath no where promised acceptance to mere grief and sorrow for sin, without faith and fruits meet for repentance: he hath no where promised to pardon these, who at last promise to leave their sins, when they can keep them no longer. 4thly, The longer repentance and closing with Christ is delayed, the difficulty thereof is every day increased. Why? 1. Because of the deceitful nature of sin, which doth daily bewitch and harden the heart the more in the practice of it.-2. Custom in any thing hath a strange influence on us, and becomes a kind of second nature, and breeds an almost invincible inclination to whatsoever we have long addicted ourselves unto, whether it be in actions natural or moral. Hence Ovid gives that good advice: "Sed propera, nec te venturas differ in horas : He who is not prepared to-day, will be more up- He that goes on from day to day in sin, will find his indisposition to repent daily increased, the habits of sin strengthened, and himself brought at length under the power of an inveterate custom. And, if it be hard to break any custom, much more a custom of sinning, which is so agreeable to depraved nature. Hence saith the Spirit of God, Jer. xiii. 23. "Can the Ethopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." 3. The longer Satan keeps possession, the more difficult will his ejection prove. The devils that pos sessed the man from the womb up, could not be cast out but by some extraordinary way. 4. Delays bring on spiritual judgments from God, such as judicial hardness on the heart, which will make repentance impossible, according to that terrible place, Isa. vi. 9, 10. Make the heart of this people fat," &c. which is quoted no less than six times in the New Testament, as if it belonged only to them that linger and sit impe nitent under gospel-calls. Lastly, We would reckon such delays madness in earthly affairs, which are but trifles when compared to salvation-work. If a man's house were on fire, we would count him mad, if he would say, it is time enough to quench it to-morrow; or if he were stung with a venomous serpent, he would be mad that neglected to seek a present cure; or if he had got poison in his stomach, he would never think he could soon enough vomit it up. If a malefactor were condemned to a cruel death to-morrow, but had a promise of remission if he should look after it to-day; would he be so foolish as delay it till next morning? But how much greater madness is it, to delay repenting and fleeing to Christ, when God's calls and promises relate to the present time, and our danger in delaying is infinitely greater than in any of the foresaid cases? Surely there is no sting so dangerous, no poison so deadly as sin, and can we too soon seek after the balm of Gilead, the blood of Christ for its cure? There is no death like the second death, no fire so dreadful as the eternal fire of God's wrath? Now, this fire is already kindled against your souls? and, if it be not timeously quenched, it will burn to the lowest hell. Lose no time to get it extinguished, by fleeing to the blood of Jesus. II. The next thing is to shew the evil and danger of delaying this work until the time of sickness and of dying. Alas, it is the common practice of the most part! But consider, 1st, What wretched ingratitude and baseness there is in it! Whether is it fit ye should give the best of your time to God that made you, or to the devil that seeks your destruction? Is it reasonable that the devil should feast on the flower and prime of your youth and strength, and your Cre |