convinced of this folly let us observe but these few things 1. That the Causes of Delay will hereafter be the same and as forcible upon us as now 2. That the Work will hereafter be greater 3. Our Strength for it is like to be less 4. Our Time to do it in will be shorter 5. Our Assistances are like to be fewer And 6. Our Impediments and Discouragements are like to be more And when all this hath been well thought on we cannot but see that though all that time which we very groundlesly presume upon should be granted us yet cannot we be sure that we shall nay we are more sure of the two that we shall not make so good use of it as we may do of the time which is present 1. Look what Causes we think we have at present to delay our Repentance till another time the same or more and more powerful to work upon us are we like to have hereafter and it is like to be as hard or harder then not to be tempted to delay than now it is Is it now a careless negligent and unconsidering temper of mind that is the cause of our delay And is it not likely the longer we delay that this same supine and regardless temper will be the more fixed and confirm'd What is it that we think will alter it The Temper we are of is such as admits of none or very slight thoughts of any such future alteration of it these thoughts consist not with such a careless and inconsiderate temper as we suppose to be the cause of our delay However such a change of it hereafter is not to be depended on What makes men more careless and secure in their sinful Courses than long impunity and forbearance He that was a little afraid to venture on sin at first lest he should be punish'd for it and lest the Wrath of God should light suddenly upon him in some severe judgment and he that was at first somewhat ashamed to sin and unable to conquer his natural Modesty or to endure the reproaches of his natural Conscience after he has with some strugling broke through these bars of fear and shame the further he ventures forward the farther he leaves them both behind him When the sin is become customary and yet he finds that he suffereth nothing by it he is the more emboldened to continue in it The longer he escapeth what at first he was afraid of the less apt is he to fear it and the more hope he hath to escape it still The prosperity of fools destroyeth them Prov. I. 32. How but by making them the more careless and resolute to go on in the ways wherein they thrive as we find it by daily experience in all sorts of Sinners Because sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Eccl. VIII 11. Is the cause of our delay a secret root of Atheism or Infidelity a disbelief of God and of his Word The longer we go on in any sin the more likely are we to be harden'd in our unbelief For whilst we hold on offending God and disobeying his Word and yet find that notwithstanding all his terrible threatnings he doth not seem to take any notice of us but letteth us alone and stretcheth not out his hand to execute vengeance upon us we are apt to take as little notice of God as we foolishly imagine he taketh of us and because we continue to do these evil things and God keeps silence we conclude the more confidently either with the Fool Psal. XIV 1. That there is no God or with another as foolish as he Psal. L. 21. That he is altogether such an one as our selves The prosperous Sinner is apt to say in his heart God hath forgotten he hideth his face he will never see it He contemneth God he saith in his heart thou wilt not require it Psal. X. 11 13. The Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Iacob regard it Psal. XCIV 7. To such a brutishness doth our continuance in sin ordinarily bring us Is it an unwarrantable presumption of the greatness of God's Mercy or of his unwearied Forbearance that is the cause of our delay And is it not then too natural to men of this presumption to presume still the more confidently the longer God forbeareth them Certainly he that delayeth at first presuming on that patience whereof he hath yet had comparatively but little experience will be the more apt to delay still longer after he hath long experienced the patience and long-suffering of God Is it the love of our sins wherewith we are bewitched so that we are not able to part with them and therefore delay our Repentance And what reason have we if we now love them so well to think that we shall not love them as well hereafter as now we do What can we imagine should bring us out of love with sin more then than now We may not be able to commit some sins hereafter which now we commit but I see not why we may not have the same love for them hereafter which we have now Nay I see that usually it is so and that few sins are less loved for becoming habitual The more we practise them the more we love them and the longer we have tasted the sensual sweetness of them the less can we endure to be without them And if our Inclinations and Tempers so alter with our Age that some juvenile sins do not relish with us as they were wont yet we do but change them for others and we are as averse from goodness and as much inclin'd to evil as ever The Sins which suit with all ages of man we commit with as much greediness as ever and as things which by custom are become natural and we sin even as we eat and drink being as unable as it seems to us to live without the one as without the other And though it may be some sorts of Sins grow stale and we find hereafter no temptation to them yet is there one thing which the longer we delay our Repentance grows still the more strong and that is an inordinate self-love and the less we have been used to deny our selves in the things we love the harder still shall we find it to do so We have been used to humour our selves and to feed corrupt Nature in all things which it craves and then it 's all a case how the Appetite changes as to this or that sin seeing what it desires it must have and we have lost all power to resist it But these things 't is needless to prove being too notorious to be denied Only they ought to be more consider'd that when we think well how there will be hereafter as many temptations to delay and as powerful too as there are now we may discern our folly in delaying our Repentance now in hopes to repent hereafter 2.
consider'd both that the Minister may take heed that he go not beyond his Commission in comforting the Sick and that we may all learn in due time how far we may build and rely on such Comforts as men in such a case can administer unto us And therefore I here in answer to it say these things First We very earnestly exhort the worst of Sinners even to the last gasp to repent of their sins because though we cannot assure them that God will now at the last hour accept of their late Repentance seeing he hath no-where as was said before declared that he will and though by reason of what is said in his Word concerning his ordinary method of dealing with Sinners we are rather afraid that he will not Yet we do not know the depth of God's Mercy nor the riches of his Infinite Goodness nor what he may be pleas'd to do in an extraordinary way if Sinners at last use extraordinary endeavours And if by such Motives and Arguments and Prayers as we can use God seem to work mightily on the spirit of the dying Sinner though we dare not assure him of the life which God hath not promised to a Death-bed Repentance and therefore we cannot be sure that he will give it yet dare we not leave him to despair because we know not but God may give it Secondly We therefore exhort the worst of dying sinners to Repentance and declare unto them the gracious and comfortable Promises which God in Christ hath made to all true Penitents because God hath commanded us to Preach Repentance unto sinners without exception and herein as we obey so we imitate our Lord and Master JESUS CHRIST who ceased not to invite all sinners to Repentance or to promise good things to the Penitent even when he who knew the hearts of all men knew that many of them to whom he Preach'd would never repent nor become capable of the good things promised God hath bidden us exhort to Repentance but he hath not told us That we are to cease from exhorting any one that will hear us so long as he liveth We cannot therefore excuse our selves if we do not all we can to render them who will not repent inexcusable it will not be safe for us to leave them this Plea That they wanted any Means or Helps at any time that we could afford them Thirdly We hold on to exhort even to the last because how near unto Death soever the sinner may seem to be we know that the Lord of Life and Death can raise him up again and we know not but he may do so and let him live yet longer to compleat the Repentance which may now be begun God is pleased sometimes by severe Chastisements and heavy Afflictions to awake sinners to Repentance who had lived in sin securely many years and now when the sinner seeth himself at the Pit's brink and Hell opening its mouth to swallow him up he may possibly think it fit to hearken to counsels of safety tho no more can be said but possibly he may yet be saved We know not but now he may enter upon a Repentance which tho it would do him no good should he now dye may prove unto Salvation if he recover and live to bring forth the fruits of it which God is yet able to make him do and hath not told us that he will not do Lastly We to the very Last exhort to Repentance and mind dying sinners of the Promises of God to Penitents because that whether it will then avail to Salvation or no yet we are sure enough it can do them no hurt It is certainly their duty to repent and ours to exhort them to it and as it would hurt us to neglect our duty so can it not hurt them to be minded of theirs For sinners to be made sensible of their sins and of this aggravation of them That they have despised the Comforts and Promises of Mercy to the Penitent is a good thing whatever the end may be of such sinners God is glorified by mens being brought to a sense and acknowledgment of his Authority and Goodness and of their own Wickedness and Baseness by their confessing That in all that is brought upon them he is righteous and they are wicked By mens acknowledging at last That God hath been always good especially in his great Patience and long forbearance hitherto and that he is now very just in his Punishments for our obstinacy glory is given to God And this ought to be done and if this will not qualifie sinners for Pardon and Salvation 't is however a part of their duty and may for ought we know mitigate the Severity of their Sentence and lessen their Torments But now after this is said it is a very sad thing that men should by wilful delays bring themselves into this uncomfortable condition And it is a very afflicting thing to every good Minister of Christ to stand by the bed-side of those dying persons to whom he is able to speak no more Comfort than all this amounts to For first He can speak no Comfort at all to the sick person but upon supposition that he is what he finds too much cause to fear he is not a sincere Penitent and this is very sad And secondly He can speak no Comfort but on supposition of such a Repentanee as the sick person himself cannot know without some extraordinary means that he now hath and therefore cannot tell how to apply the Comfort to himself And this is very sad again The Sincerity of ones Repentance cannot ordinarily be known to himself but by the fruits of it in a holy Life and by these he that 's now dying can never know it It is only such a Repentance as would produce Holiness of Life if the sick person should recover that is Repentance to Salvation and when the sinner on his Death-bed calls to mind how often his heart hath in this point deceived him when he remembers how his love to sin hath hitherto conquer'd all such Purposes and Resolutions of holy living how often he hath heretofore upon the same or some other occasion very seriously as he thought resolved as now he doth and yet never kept his Resolution how shall he be able to assure himself That he would keep it any better now should he yet live I hope what hath been already said is abundantly enough to convince us all both that a sinner can never repent too soon and that he may drive it off till it be too late And therefore seeing Repentance is altogether necessary to Salvation it is a work that requires great Haste and admits of no Delay The CONCLUSION FRom what we have now proved it may be too easie I fear for many of us to reflect very sadly upon our selves It is certainly if these things be so as hath been said high time for us all to think what we have been doing all the while we have already lived in
know befal us as well as any others If we are surprized by any of these after we are become sincere Penitents they do us but little hurt they are God's Visitations indeed and for what He it may be only knows but the worst that comes to us by them is only this That we are long a dying and in such a manner as it pleaseth God But if we have not sincerely Repented before these evils seize us it is greatly to be feared we shall never be able to Repent and God only knows what will become of us Let us then be so wise as to make good use of our strength and health our senses and understanding whilst we have them Why make we not all sure now whilst we can seeing we know not how soon it will be that we cannot Now we are young we are too jovial and airy and we put all off to those years which we suppose will of course bring with them more Seriousness and when we think it will better become us to look gravely and Religiously When those years which we are wont to call the years of Discretion are come we find that a great deal of other business comes with them and now we are men and women we are engaged in the World and if we have got loose from the Vanities of Youth which do not seldome hold us fast even till we die we are become intangled in things that are but a little better and we put off all yet till old age come and make us more leisure Old age is all this while stealing insensibly upon us and we perceive it not for the throng we are in till we find our selves on a sudden grown too heavy and dull and our faculties too much decay'd and too feeble for much business And then instead of serious reflections on the state of our Souls we are rather apt to reflect with too much concern on our present bodily weakness as we are become unable to do any longer as we have done and yet have as great a mind to do as ever And hence also instead of being Penitent for our Sins we are apt to grow Passionate Peevish and Impatient and our Repentance is still put off to our last Sickness After all these delays it may be we have no Sickness at all Death gives us no warning at all of its approach but knocks us down with a sudden blow or else it sends such a Messenger for us as will not allow us to know or consider whither we are going by reason of either the stupefaction or Torment which it lays us under What remains then but that we take the Preacher's advice Ecc. XII 1. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth while the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them But besides the uncertainty of the term of our life as to us and many disappointments which not unusually befal us in it we ought farther to consider that it is very Iust in God to cut our lives the shorter for our delaying to keep his Commandments Neither can we take a more likely course to provoke God to take us away in the midst of our days or to render them by his Iudgments intollerable to us than this bad use which we make of them When by delaying our Duty to God we make it appear that we grudge him any considerable part of our time and that we are resolved to dishonour him with as much of it and to bestow upon his Service as little of it as we can what readier way can we take to provoke him either to cut our thread of life very short or to make it very knotty to us Can we our selves when we think well of it judge it fit that he to whose goodness we owe our life and being and in whose hands our times are Psal. XXXI 15. In whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind Job XII 10. should allow us just as much time as we desire to dishonour and affront him in I confess I know not what greater Presumption we can be guilty of than to resolve to rebel against God as long as we can think it safe to do so and to expect he should give us from day to day more time to do so in O let us take heed lest he take away our breath and we return to our dust ere we have begun to serve him for then be sure all these vain thoughts shall perish Psal. CVI. 4. The youngest of us is not sure to live one day longer and we who grow old are very sure that we cannot have many days more if any to live in this World nor what kind of days be they many or few they will prove to us Let us then no longer delay our Repentance because we are so little sure that we shall have any hereafter to repent in SECT V. The Second Danger of DELAY AS it is a dangerous thing to drive off our Repentance in hopes that we may have time enough hereafter to repent in So is it altogether as dangerous upon another account Because we know not if we have an hereafter whether we shall repent in it or no. I have already mention'd some things which may disable us to repent hereafter but besides this it may well be fear'd that we may be also as unwilling and every way as much indisposed to repent hereafter as we are now Is there not as much reason now to move us to keep the Commandments of God as ever there will be hereafter Is he not the same God now that he will be then one and the same unchangeable for ever Are not our Obligations and our Dependances on him the same And is not the danger of dying impenitent the same now that it will be then What reason then can we have to hope that if the consideration of these things will not move us now to Repentance it should prevail more with us hereafter How difficult or how easie soever the Duty may now seem to us or whatever it is that now affrights us from it or encourageth us to delay it we have little cause to think that it will become more easie by delay that we shall meet with fewer difficulties the longer we drive it off or fewer temptations to defer it still longer Nay 't is very certain that the longer we delay the difficulty daily more and more increaseth and very probably so will our unwillingness too for 't is not very likely that we shall be more willing to set our selves about a harder work hereafter seeing we dare not venture on it now that it is much more easie Would to God all impenitent Sinners could be brought to consider this That all the good they do themselves by delaying their Repentance is to make it every day harder for them to do a thing which they must do or else they perish That we may be