cometh Who that is unprepared knows what time he shall have to prepare himself Who can tell whether the next moment shall be his own and how little time he may have for so great a work And who would loyter any part of his time who knows how much that work will take up for 't is not a few spare hours or dying minutes will put the Soul into a readiness will change its temper and purge out its Sins and dispose and fit it for another World And who can set back Death but a few hours when it gives a short warning and is ready to strike us or perhaps without any warning seizes and hurries us to the other World It is every day making up to us and approaches nearer us every hour and with quick and undiscerned steps it dogs and follows us and may overtake us before we are aware of it A sudden Feaver may set the strongest Body on fire and presently flare out the Lamp of Life A Convulsion may seize in a moment the main fort of Life and surprize us in our greatest strength An Apoplexy or a Deliquium may stop the nimble wheels of Life that moved vigorously and strongly just before and make all the Vital Faculties stand still immediately Besides a thousand accidents from without make us in the midst of Life to be in Death so that we can never be secure but we may be a dying and every time we expire it may be so far as we know our last breath Who would not be then ready who may thus be called on a sudden who may have the Son of Man come in an hour when he thinketh not Come he certainly will but we cannot tell whether in the third or fourth watch of the night let us then watch the whole night that is be ready alwayes If we knew the time of his coming we might be careless and sleep and drowze perhaps till he was near us but since we are alwayes to expect him at an uncertain hour let us put our selves into a posture and readiness to receive him at his own time We can never be ready too soon though he come late but if we are too late before we are ready we lose an opportunity we can never regain and we slip that time which we shall bewail to all Eternity Let us think 2. Upon the certainty of his coming If there were any hopes that he would never come if there were any probability that we should never dye if any Man could be so foolish as to perswade himself to doubt of that he might have some reason to neglect the other but no Man can be Sceptical as to that point nor be so vain as to dispute himself out of the belief of it but he knows and is convinced of that fatal Truth that he must once dye and be laid in the same place of darkness where he has seen so many others laid before him why should he not then prepare and provide for that which will dertainly happen it can never be in vain or to no purpose to do this it can be no lost labour no unnecessary work but all must confess it ought to be done one time or other Why do we not then do that which we own to be necessary Why that it is indeed sayes the foolish Sinner but it may be done hereafter and at a more convenient season Would you not think a Man mad that should talk thus when he was in danger of drowning and would not take hold of the rope was thrown out to him till his last and third rising but let go what he had in his hand in hope to catch it again afterwards or he that was like to fall down a precipice and would not save himself when he might but trust to a twig that was near the bottom He deserves to perish that will not be willing to be saved till he is just perishing And he that allowes himself to live in a sinful state at present with hopes to get out of it hereafter is but like him that stabs himself with a design of being cured or swallows down a deadly Poyson upon presumption of taking an Antidote after he has done it the one is certainly strong enough to kill him and the other may not be strong enough to save him or he may be dead before he can take it Mens resolutions to Repent hereafter are alwayes insincere for if they were not they would Repent at present And besides what a sad state are they in till they do this they are like Prisoners lying under a sentence of Death and Condemnation who hope to procure a Pardon but will not endeavour to do it till they are called to Execution and it be too late Their unrepented Sins do put them into as damnable a state as if Heaven had past sentence upon them and though they know this yet they are willing to continue so till their state is desperate and they are never like to be otherwise For he has no reason to think he shall be ever ready who is not willing to make himself ready at present Let us not therefore delay one minute this great work of Repentance but let us set about it immediately and resolve to go through with it and to live in such a constant habit and practice of Repentance and a good Life as shall make us duly ready and prepared to dye For 3. Let 's consider how terrible Death must be to a wicked impenitent Sinner and what concern he will be in at the approach of it when he must leave all the pleasures of his Sins and the remembrance of them fills him only with terrour and astonishment when all their false charms and meretricious looks whereby they before pleased and enchanted him go off and they now look gastly and frightful and stare him in the face with a scaring appearance and with the sad apprehensions of what they are like to end in when a dreadful Eternity presents it self before him and is like to swallow him up in an horrid abyss of Misery when he comes so nigh to the other World that he can look as it were over to it and see the sad reception he is like to have there when he sees Hell open before him the bottomless Pit gaping to receive him and some of the Flames of it flashing as it were out upon him when Death like an Executioner comes to seize and apprehend him and hurry him before the dreadful Tribunal where all his past Actions must be examined all his secret Sins laid open and a dreadful Sentence shall be immediately pronounced upon him The thoughts of this is enough to make a good Man afraid and the best of us must tremble when we come before this Judgment-seat and are to have our everlasting Fates decreed and determined but the Wicked must be filled with terrour and amazement who can have no hopes no refuge to fly to who has no plea for any Mercy or Pardon
taken a great deal of liberty and had the full swinge of his Lusts and vicious Inclinations when they afterward grow calm and cool of themselves and he is tired or satiated with them then to leave them after he has had a full and a long enjoyment of them To Repent time enough to avoid all the bitter effects and punishments of them after they have fully tasted and exhausted all their sweetness and pleasantness and then throw away the poysonous core when they have sufficiently eaten of the dainty and forbidden Fruit. Men to be sure will draw such consequences to themselves when Religion they think puts such an Argument into the hands of their Lusts which are apt to be too strong of themselves against all Religion and Reason whatsoever and when they have such a fair colour and pretence as they suppose from Religion it self they will be sure to improve it to destroy all Religion by this one part of it and by turning its own weapons upon it self So that like the Eagle in the Fable it shall receive its mortal wound from a dart that comes feathered from its own wing and by this subtle contrivance it shall be made to countermine it self Is Heaven then to be thus out-witted and over-reach'd in its own policy And whereas it designed this priviledge of Repentance to bring Men to Vertue shall the Devil find out a stratagem whereby to be too hard for it even upon its own ground and make it an instrument to encourage Men in their Sins Has God like a soft and easie and indiscreet Prince granted such a Charter and made such Concessions to his Subjects as shall destroy his own Power and Government and make their Obedience loose and precarious No sure neither his Wisdom nor his Power is to be thus lessened and diminished nor is the Grace of God the greatest favour of the Gospel to be thus turned into wantonness and a principle of loosness and licentiousness as these Men make it who thus presume upon Sinning at present upon the advantage of an after Repentance and resolve therefore to run on in the score and to take up great summes in hand and be much in debt to Heaven because they think the whole may be compounded pounded at the last and made up for a very little We may be sure in the general there must be some great errour and mistake in this matter and that 't is either a false Principle that these Men go upon or that they draw a very false Conclusion from it for God must be a very easie Being and Religion must have a very weak place in it if it lye open to such a consequence 2. We commonly tell Men in the second place therefore to prevent this that the after Repentance is very hazardous and uncertain for no Man knows that he shall have time to do it hereafter or that he shall not be surprized with a sudden and unexpected Death before he has performed this Repentance he designed and this indeed is very considerable and were there nothing else yet a wise Man would not venture his Soul and its Eternal State upon so great an uncertainty as Life and Futurity is for that we know is no more in our own power to command than it is to recall the time that is past and who that thinks and considers what Eternity means would hazard it upon so ticklish a cast and so perfect a lottery as the continuance of Life is Do not we see most of the World snatch'd away on a sudden Death hardly giving them any warning but coming upon them with secret and undiscerned steps and stealing up to them and striking the fatal blow before they were aware of it and what shall this poor wretch do whose Life is done before his Repentance is begun He who intended so many years hence to begin his Repentance shall begin it sooner in another World but shall never end it but Repent in vain to all Eternity in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for his folly and madness in not Repenting sooner But though this be a monstrous hazard and no Man in his Wits would lye open to such a danger which can never be repaired but may be easily prevented yet this uncertainty of Life seems not a sufficient security to Religion because 't is a security only by accident and it is in great measure lost if a Man do live out the usual period which many do and which most hope to do and there ought to be greater Reasons to oblige them to a present Repentance and a constant Obedience than the meer fears that they may dye sooner and it would be strange if Religion should depend upon such an uncertainty and a Man should find a way to free himself from the necessity of it the greatest part of his Life if he were sure to live long 3. Therefore we strengthen this commonly with another Consideration and that is That though a Man may have Time to Repent hereafter yet God may not give him Grace to do it especially if he so provoke him by such a neglect and abuse of this Grace as quite defeats the end and design of it and nothing can be more highly provoking and a more just ground for God to deny us his Spirit than thus to abuse and pervert this Grace of the Gospel as to make it an encouragement not to Repent but to Sin because they may Repent Besides the longer the Custom and Habits of Sin continue upon us the more root they take and the more difficult are they to be pluck'd up and the Mind is in time so much hardened by them that like a chronical Disease or an old Ulcer by being suffered to run long upon it they grow almost incurable And he must be in a fad condition who lets the power of his Sins thus grow upon him and yet who finds them so difficult at present to be overcome and who has that power dayly lessened if not lost whereby he should do it But still though Gods Spirit shall not alwayes strive with man Gen. 5.3 yet we cannot positively determine to what degrees of wickedness a Man must arrive before God will wholly withdraw his Spirit from him nor can we say that God denyes necessary Grace to any whereby they may Repent so long as they are in this state of Tryal and Probation or that there are any such though the greatest of Sinners who are debarred or excluded from the power and priviledge of Repentance for this would tend to discourage a great many from Repentance and do as much harm by shutting those out of all hopes as by opening the gate too wide to others or letting it alwayes stand open to any that will come in at any time There must be therefore some other Considerations to take off the force of this mistake and to preserve the absolute necessity of a good Life and a constant Obedience which I shall endeavour to find out and
laughs at them sometimes and would seem in his highest mirth to have courage enough to make a jest of them to others yet he fears them in good earnest and trembles at the thoughts of them when he is alone and when Death brings them nearer to him he is scared and terrified and has sufficient proof of their Reality in his own mind What a wretched and miserable Condition is he then in when the terrors of Death and the greater terrours of Hell are set before him when all about him is horror and misery and the blackness of darkness when he has nothing to look back upon but the bitter memory of his past sins and no prospect before him but the unknown and unconceivable torments of another World when Gods Anger lyes heavy upon him and sinks him into the deepest gulph of despair and the Grave and the bottomless pit are ready to swallow him up and to devour him both Soul and Body what an instance of Misery is here what a Picture of Hell nay what a real and sensible Hell is there then before us Who that stands by the Bed of such a dying Wretch and draws the Curtains and sees the Agonies and hears the doleful expressions of such a miserable Creature would not be deeply affected with such a sad state as he sees a Man put into by sin and impenitence Who would not then think Vertue and Religion very comfortable and very desirable things and much to be preferred to sinful looseness and extravagance Who would not then give all the World either that he had not sin'd or that he had Repented in time and so not brought himself into that remediless state of present and future torment Repentance if it be true and sincere will prevent a Sinners coming to this which will otherwise certainly be his Portion and he can never escape it in this World if he be not stupid but to be sure not in the next Now who that knows he must dye in a little time and that then at furthest this will be his case if he go on in his sins and be not timely brought off from them would ever madly continue in them and not break them off by Repentance when he is all the while exposed to this dreadful danger and lyes open to the fears and miseries of another World How comfortable is it to be delivered from those and to live in such a state that a Man has no reason to be afraid of Death nor to be scared with the thoughts of another World But whenever it comes he can welcome it chearfully or at least submit to it patiently without horror and distraction and have reasonable and well-grounded hopes that it shall be well with him hereafter full assurance he may never have without all manner of fears but he will have chearful and rational hopes according to the certainty and evidence of his Repentance and the sincerity of his Vertue and Obedience such a conditional assurance every one has by a Faith truly Divine that if he thus repents he shall be saved this is founded on a proposition that is Divinely revealed and so is matter of Faith but that I have so repented is not matter of Faith but only of private Judgment and Opinion of my self but I have no reason to doubt or be afraid if I know upon examining my self that I have forsaken every wilful sin and have left the ill course of life I was in and would not for any profit or pleasure commit a wilful Sin though I were never so much tempted to it and it were never so much in my power and that I have thus endeavoured to live and to do my Duty sincerely to God and Man though with great imperfections and infirmities still upon me this will give us a Rational and a Moral assurance of our Salvation which is all we can have without a particular Revelation how will this cheer and support a Man when he comes to dye how will it take out the sting and allay the bitterness of Death in great measure and be the best Cordial to keep up his Spirits in his last Agonies and Extremities being conscious to himself of his own sincerity and his conscience not condemning him as to any wilful Sin He will have confidence towards God and can assure his heart before him 1 John 3.19 He can then safely trust and rely upon the Mercy of God in and thorough Christ for the pardon of all his sins because he has truely and in time repented of them and 't is not a mere presumptuous and ungrounded confidenee which like the hope of the hypocrite shall perish Job 8.13 but he has a sure Title to it by the Gospel and the spirit of God beareth witness with his spirit and by the joynt testimony of that and his Conscience agreeing with the Rules and Measures of the Gospel for otherwise 't is but deceit and delusion he hath great inward comfort and chearful hopes of Heaven and hath no reason to fear but it shall be well with him in another world 'T is very happy to live in such a state as this where we are provided against not only all the evils of this World and the worst that can happen to us here but against Death and all the evils of another and may chearfully enjoy the blessings of Providence at present and rejoyce in the hopes of a much greater happiness hereafter so that we may as the wise Man says Eat our bread with joy and drink our wine with a merry heart for God now accepteth our works Eccles 9.7 but a state of sin and impenitence is a dreadful and a hazardous state exposed to the Terrors of Death and the amazing Evils of another World so that if a Man consider'd it as he ought he could not enjoy himself one moment nor would ever live under the fears and dangers of it for all the World and what if he thinks not of it which is all the relief he has against it Yet it is never the less in it self nor never the farther from him but though he is now never so stupid or in the deepest Lethargie yet Death and Hell will awaken him or however the flames there may be ready to catch hold of him while he is asleep and in the most sensless state 3. Repentance puts us into a very blessed and happy state as it reconciles us to God and restores us to his favour who was before angry and displeased with us We are enemies to God by our wicked works and alienated from him Coloss 1.21 Our iniquities have separated between us and our God and our sins have hid his face from us Isa 59.2 'T is they make the only breach and separation between God and his Creatures and provoke him who is Love and Goodness to put on Wrath and Anger and become even a consuming fire so that his anger is said to be kindled against sinners and wax hot against them and he poureth