to live a good Life when you are just a dying How can you be said to finish your Christian Course when you have scarce time to begin it You left not Sin but Sin has left you if it has indeed left you for your Evil Desires as far as we can judge are not alter'd or chang'd for the better but are only beat down and stunn'd at the approaching sight of Death you cannot give any convincing Proof of your Enmity to Sin or Obedience to God you can only wish you had obey'd and 't is not good Wishes but good Actions that must carry us to Heaven God forbid I should exclude you thence and God forbid but I should tell you That 't is no easie matter under your Circumstances to get thither the Way is narrow and you have made it narrower by your Transgressions the Gate is strait and you have made it straiter nay almost clos'd it up by the multitude of your Offences and your obstinate continuance in them And therefore seek diligently ask importunately and knock without ceasing that it may be opened unto you do not too much fear Despair but fear Presumption and groundless Hopes of Future Happiness willingly retain Sorrow and Anguish with you they are the most decent Company for you to appear in will do most good on others and sooner lead you to Heaven than the bold mistaken Pretences of Peace and Assurance Exercise every Act of Humiliation Be always conversant with your God and always meditating on the odiousness of Sin and the Sufferings of your Saviour for it Lose no part of the short time allow'd you to prepare for Eternity Gratify no superfluous Bodily Desire though never so innocent eat the Bread drink the Water of Afflicton wholly regard your better your Immortal Part and remember whatever the Condition of that is your Body too must share in it and therefore spare no pains but kneel and weep and read and watch and fast and pray and use your utmost endeavours that you may not enter into Eternal Condemnation THE SECOND SERMON MICAH III. 4. Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behav'd themselves ill in their doings CRUEL and hardhearted Man ever most treacherous to himself and willing to be deceiv'd in the greatest Concern in order to it would fain alter the Establish'd Nature and Course of things Expect Happiness though he lives wickedly he would disjoin what God has always put together go on in Sin and yet hope to avoid the sad Consequences of sinning The word of God plainly tells us That the end of sin is shame and destruction Phil. 3. 19. And yet many never throughly believe this till they are beyond question convinc'd of the truth of it till 't is evidently prov'd on themselves and even then others believe it as little as they did before Had you that are now standing on the very brinks of Eternity ready to be swept into it by the stroke of Justice had you believ'd this sad truth by the Example of others you might have died the common death and been visited with the visitation of all men You might after much good done to your selves and others have descended into the Grave in peace or would but many others credit it now on your account they would not give a future Instance of it themselves But we almost always fear and dread too late Thus a timely rational fear of God and his Judgments had surely prevented all the Evils that have befallen you when now you fear to dye but know not how to avoid it you dread the day of Recompences but see it with full speed hasting towards you And there is no doubt but you have us'd all the Sollicitation of Friends and I hope have apply'd your selves to God with greater earnestness than ever but yet for all this in respect of Temporal Judgment there is no redress no remedy the neglected Truth of the Text is now made good upon you Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings The sense of which words is twofold either that of the Old Testament and then it signifies the certainty of Temporal Punishment or that of the New as we find it all along alluding to it and then it means the Eternal Punishment due to Sinners for their obstinate continuance in Sin in spight of all Warnings all Admonitions to the contrary and I will treat of these two promiscuously and then separate them by the Practical Application I shall make first to You that are by the Goodness of God and your Superiors mercifully withheld from the Punishment you have deserv'd And then secondly to You that are doom'd to dye that you may behave your selves so That though your Temporal Calamity be unavoidable yet your God may not still cover the Eye of his Mercy from you or be deaf to your Requests for pity on your poor Souls And if we look into the Holy Scriptures we shall find frequent mention of an acceptable time and of a day of salvation which we are earnestly advis'd on no account to let slip Thus says David to God Psal 69. 13. I make my prayer unto thee in an acceptable time And thus says God himself Isa 49. 8. In an acceptable time I have heard thee and in a day of salvation I have helped thee And hence came that passionate wish in the 18th verse of the 48th chap. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments then had thy peace been as a river and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea And that seasonable exhortation in the 55th chap. v. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near and to shew its direct aspect on particular Persons as well as to a Nation in general it immediately follows Let the wicked man forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Now this acceptable time this season in which God may be found in Mercy is very often in Scripture opposed to another space of time in which some of the Children of Men shall not be accepted in which they shall not be succoured at least from the Temporal Calamities they are under though they never so piteously intreat for it and in which God will not be found of them though they diligently seek him this the Psalmist calls a time of the great water-floods in which they shall not come near him when the overflowing of Sin and wrath as a mighty stream and deep gulph shall interpose and cut off all communication of Mercy between them and their God thus again says God Isa 1. 15. Though they call I will not answer when you
adore his Infinite Mercy towards you and improve them directly to the End intended And you will do so if you make this Act of Grace a new life to your Souls as well as Bodies if with a just abhorrence of your selves and a design for the future to retract them you deliberately consider what were the beginnings of Wickedness and by what progress you arriv'd to that heighth of Iniquity that the Earth was scarce able any longer to bear you And if any of you are accounted unworthy to stay in the Land of your Nativity carry not your old Crimes to New Climates for God can find you out there and punish you for your repeated abuse of Mercy Have always then in your minds the bitter Fruits of Sin the servile Fear Shame and meanness of Spirit it betrays its Votaries to and the Temporal and Eternal Ruin that without Repentance will at length accompany it and hear and forbear and do no more so wickedly And since you have receiv'd such miserable Usage from Vice with a just disdain forsake its Service and for the future zealously ingage for Vertue against which there is no law Call to mind the lost Profession of your Christianity the Grace of God that heaps not Wrath and Misery on our heads but brings salvation teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live righteously soberly and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works The neglect of this Lesson has cost you dear and the practising of it for the time to come is the only true Return you can make to that Merciful God who has deliver'd your Souls from death your Eyes from tears and now offers his Grace for the future to keep your feet from falling Let the time past of your life therefore suffice to have wrought the lusts of your flesh when you walkt according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the power of the air the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience for your Prayers are heard and more days added to your Life that you should no longer live the rest of your time to the lusts of men but to the will of God There is mercy with God says the Psalmist that he may be feared to be drawn by the cords of a man to be won to our Duty and melted down by loving-kindness is what an ingenuous Temper can hardly withstand but to continue in sin because grace has abounded is the mark of a base abject Nature fit for nothing but ruin and therefore should you forgetful of the Goodness extended towards you abandon your present Safety return to your old Sins and by them be brought into the same condemnation again your Behaviour though never so dejected and full of submission will not be believ'd will move no pity will procure no commiseration because of your renew'd false and perfidious dealings with God and your own Souls And now I shall come to the last and most deplorable Portion of my Discourse to speak particularly to you that are doom'd to dye and to persuade you to endeavour to behave your selves so that though your Temporal Calamity be unavoidable yet your God may not still cover the Eye of his Mercy from you or be deaf to your Requests for pity on your poor Souls And truly I confess I scarce know where to begin or how to find out words mournful enough for your Condition I am sure if you look into your own Consciences every one of you can say I well remember the time when thou O God wast near unto me by thy Grace and the good Motions of thy Spirit that Blessed Spirit which would have been a lamp unto my feet and a lanthorn unto my path if I had not ungratefully turned my back upon it But not to aggravate that which is too heavy of it self or fruitlesly lament but compassionately to help you to regain the Assistance of that Blessed Spirit so needful for you in your present Circumstances I will if the former part of my Discourse has fully bent your minds to good Counsel before it be evidently too late endeavour to shew you a Glimpse of Mercy tho after all my Wishes and Endeavours I must acknowledge that there is but one whole Virtue you are now capable to practice or so to practice as you your selves may judge of the Truth of it but yet 't is a Virtue that will supply the place of a great many others and perhaps by the Mercy of God atone for the Breach of all the rest but if you willingly fail in this and next to the Grace of God it depends wholly on your Will I think you are undone for ever And this Virtue is Sincerity which abhors any evasive Arts or Shifts which excludes all Hypocrisy all Double dealing all feign'd Pretences or deceiving of God or your own Souls it admits no Mixture of Dissimulation or sinister Aim no relying on your own private deprav'd Judgments but a ready unbiass'd Freedom of Mind to impart and lay open every thing plain and naked to be judg'd of by those who sincerely desire to direct you to Heaven And let me beseech you to yield to their advice and trust those whose desire is the Salvation of your Souls rather than those who have done all they can to destroy them And the Ground of this Virtue is Honesty of Heart Uprightness of Intention and God who searches the Heart and sees into the closest Recesses there knows when you act from this Inward Principle and when not and will certainly deal with you accordingly And he that is scarce able to do any thing and yet refuses to do the little he can sullenly lies down in misery and willingly accepts of his destruction But if this be not enough to say as I know not what is enough to rescue you from the blindness and hardness of heart a long train of iniquity has involv'd you in I will yet speak my mind more plainly to you for your Circumstances will not admit Palliation or Delay I know no way to Heaven for you but by abundance of Remorse and Contrition and that manifested to God the World and your own Consciences by Restitution to the utmost of your power and a candid Consession to prevent the like Evils to others which have befallen you And Repentance is scarce any thing else but Restitution join'd with a due Sorrow and Confession a Restoring to God the lost Service of his Creature a Restoring to our Wrong'd Countrey or Neighbours what we have injuriously depriv'd them of and a Restoring our Selves by the Grace of God to the first Dignity of our Nature to the Purity and Holiness which was that Image of God in which we were created And if you will not
do this in part in that part which you are able to do 't is folly to expect it in the whole the whole you cannot perform you have not time for it a part you may do and let me intreat you to do it freely so freely that you your selves may have a rational ground to suppose you would have done the whole if you had time and space to effect it 'T is in vain and beyond belief to say you would do what now you can't when you will not do what you can I do allow you have resolv'd to live a good life if you had been spar'd but spar'd you are not and therefore can never prove your selves as to this but something you may do and by it judge of all the rest Restitution to the utmost of your power and Confession to the Glory of God and hindring the progress of Wickedness in others is a necessary part of Repentance This you can do and if you refuse this you would have certainly refus'd all the rest if it had been left to your choice you would in a little time have return'd to your old Sins in spight of the Resolutions which not a due sense of Sin but your present Danger has extorted from you And believe me a Vow or an Oath for concealing a real Evil is a Confederacy and League with Hell and a Train of Satan to send others after you in the same pernicious Tract Humane Nature is sociable and Friendship is the life of Society but a conjunction of ill Men to ill Practices is the destruction both of Society and them that ingage in it and nothing can in this Case free your Souls but a generous Design and Desire to break the Infernal Combination that you may be the last that no more may be ruin'd by it as you have been And he that tho late yet does all he can to gain Christ may not lose him but he that in the very view of Death prefers Shame or Fear or the love of Wickedness or any other Passion before him will never have him and therefore say and do restore and confess every thing necessary to unravel thy former Wicked Life to take off the ill effects of thy Example to disingage thy Companions from the Evils thou hast brought them into or accompanied them in And let not the Spirit of slumber rest upon you do not willingly stupify your selves do not now 't is so very near put the evil day far off by endeavouring not to think of it much less by diverting the thoughts thereof by any thing really sinful as Drink vain Discourse or evil Company but rather employ the small remainder of your time to the best purposes in continually prostrating your selves before the Throne of Mercy in freely owning to all the Righteous Judgment of God upon you for your former Trangressions and in making your Departure hence as profitable to the Souls of Men as possibly you can by beating down all pernicious vain glorious thoughts of dying bravely as an impious World expresses a stubborn and hardened demeanor but with much Remorse and great Contrition with exemplary Humility and Penitence resolve to resign your Spirits into the hands of your Creator And O Righteous God how sincerely should they prepare how cordially should they behave themselves that in a few days are sure to appear before thee how unfeignedly should they discharge their Consciences before they stand at thy Just Tribunal and willingly lay down every weight of Sin that has so long beset them and which without laying down will soon sink them into the Dwelling of Everlasting Misery But O Lord thou Lover of Souls who dost not desire the death the utter destruction of thy sinful Creatures but rather that they should turn from their sins and be sav'd return thou O Lord and do not any longer hide thy face from them when they spread forth their hands unto thee assist them by thy Grace in this their extremity make them willing and ready to be reconcil'd unto thee before they go hence and be no more seen and then be thou fully reconcil'd unto them for his sake and through his Mediation who came to Bear and Atone for the Sins of the World thy beloved Son and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ FINIS