reafon for more delays, that they are a strong argument to the contrary. Because the work is difficult now, therefore do not make it more fo; and because your de lays have increased the difficulty of it, and will do more and more, therefore delay no longer.

3. Another pretended encouragement to thefe delays, is the great mercy and patience of God. He commonly bears longer with finners; and therefore there is no fuch abfolute and urgent neceffity of a fpeedy repentance, and reformation of our lives. Men have not the face to give this for a reafon; but yet for all that it lies at the bottom of many mens hearts. So Solomon tells us, Eccl. viii. 11. Becaufe fentence against an evil work is not executed speedily; therefore the heart of the fons of men is fully fet in them to do evil:

But it is not always thus. There are few of us but have feen feveral inftances of God's feverity to finners, and have known feveral perfons furprifed by a fudden hand of God, and cut off in the very act of fin, without having the leaft refpite given them, without time or li berty fo much as to ask God forgiveness, and to confider either what they had done, or whither they were going. And this may be the cafe of any finner; and is fo much the more likely to be thy cafe, because thou doft to bold ly prefume upon the mercy and patience of God.

But if it were always thus, and thou wert fure to be fpared yet a while longer, what can be more unreasonable and difingenuous, than to refolve to be evil, because God is good; and because he fuffers fo long, to fin fo much the longer; and because he affords thee a space of repentance, therefore to delay it, and put it off to the laft? The proper defign of God's goodness, is to lead men to repentance; and he never intended his patience for an encouragement to men to continue in their fins, but for an opportunity and an argument to break them off by repentance.

Thefe are the pretended reafons and encouragements to men to delay their repentance, and the reformation of their lives; and you fee how groundlefs and unreafonable they are which was the first thing I propound ed to speak to.

II. I fhall add fome farther confiderations, to engage

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men effectually to fet about this work speedily, and without delay. And because they are many, I fhall infist upon those which are most weighty and confiderable, without being very curious and folicitous about the method and order of them: for, provided they be but effectual to the end of perfuafion, it matters not how inartificially they are ranged and difpofed.

1. Confider, that in matters of great and neceffary concernment, and which must be done, there is no greater argument of a weak and impotent mind, than irrefolution; to be undetermined where the cafe is so plain, and the neceffity fo urgent; to be always about doing that which we are convinced must be done.

Victuras agimus femper, nec vivimus unquam :

"We are always intending to live a new life, but can never find a time to fet about it." This is as if a man fhould put off eating, and drinking, and fleeping, from one day and night to another, till he have ftarved and destroyed himself. It feldom falls under any man's de liberation, whether he fhould live or not, if he can chufe; and if he cannot chufe, it is in vain to deliberate about it. It is much more abfurd to deliberate, whether we fhould live virtuoufly or religioufly, foberly or righte oufly in the world; for that upon the matter is to confult, whether a man fhould be happy or not. Nature hath determined this for us, and we need not reafon about it; and, confequently, we ought not to delay that which we are convinced is fo neceffary in order to it.

2. Confider, that religion is a great and a long work; and afks fo much time, that there is none left for the delaying of it. To begin with repentance, which is commonly our firft entrance into religion; this alone is a great work; and it is not only the bufinefs of a fudden thought and refolution, but of execution and action: it is the abandoning of a finful courfe, which we cannot leave, till we have in fome degree maftered our lufts for fo long as they are our mafters, like Pharoah, they will keep us in bondage, and not let us go to ferve the Lord. The habits of fin and vice are not to be plucked up and caft off at once as they have been long in con

tracting,

tracting, fo, without a miracle, it will require a competent time to fubdue them, and get the victory over them; for they are conquered juft by the fame degrees that the habits of grace and virtue grow up and get ftrength in us.

So that there are feveral duties to be done in religion, and often to be repeated: many graces and virtues are to be long practifed and exercised, before the contrary vices will be fubdued, and before we arrive to a confirmed and fettled ftate of goodness; fuch a ftate as can only give us a clear and comfortable evidence of the fincerity of our resolution and repentance, and of our good condition towards God. We have many lufts to mortify; many paffions to govern, and bring into order; much good to do, to make what amends and reparation we can for the much evil we have done: we have many things to learn, and many to unlearn, to which we shall be ftrongly prompted by the corrupt inclinations of our nature, and the remaming power of ill habits and cuftoms and perhaps we have fatisfaction and reftitution to make for the many injuries we have done to others, in their perfons, or eftates, or reputations: in a word, we have a body of fin to put off, which clings close to us, and is hard to part with: we have to cleanfe ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and fpirit, and to perfect holinefs in the fear of God; to increafe and improve our graces and virtues; to add to our faith, knowledge, and temperance, and patience, and brotherly kindness, and charity; and to abound in all the fruits of righteousness, which are by fefus Chrift, to the praife and glory of God: we have to be useful to the world, and exemplary to others in a holy and virtuous converfation; our light is fo to fhine before men, that others may fee our good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven.

And do we think all this is to be done in an instant, and requires no time? that we may delay and put off to the laft, and yet do all this work well enough? Do we think we can do all this in time of ficknefs and old age,, when we are not fit to do any thing; when the fpirit of a man can hardly bear the infirmities of nature, much lefs a guilty confcience and a wounded fpirit? Do we think, that when the day hath been idly spent and fquan

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dered away by us, that we shall be fit to work when the night and darkness comes? When our understanding is weak, and our memory frail, and our will crooked, and, by a long cuftom of finning, obftinately bent the wrong way, what can we then do in religion? what reasonable or acceptable fervice can we then perform to God? When our candle is juft finking into the focket,. how fhall our light fo fhine before men, that others may fee our good works?

Alas! the longest life is no more than fufficient for a man to reform himself in, to repent of the errors of his. life, and to amend what is amifs; to put our fouls into a good pofture and preparation for another world,, to. train up ourfelves for eternity, and to make ourselves. meet to be made partakers of the inheritance of the faints in light.

3. Confider what a desperate hazard we run by these delays. Every delay of repentance is a venturing the main chance. It is uncertain whether hereafter we fhall have time for it; and if we have time, whether we fhall have a heart to it, and the affiftance of God's grace to. go through with it. God hath indeed been graciously pleafed to promife pardon to repentance: but he hath no where promised life and leifure, the aids of his grace and Holy Spirit, to thofe who put off their repentance; he hath no where promised acceptance to mere forrow and trouble for fin, without fruits meet for repentance,. and amendment of life; he hath no where promised to receive them to mercy and favour, who only give him good words, and are at laft contented to condefcend so far to him, as to promife to leave their fins when they can. keep them no longer. Many have gone thus far in times. of affliction and fickness, as to be awakened to a great fenfe of their fins, and to be mightily troubled for their wicked lives, and to make folemn promises and profes fions of becoming better; and yet, upon their deliver ance and recovery, all hath vanished and come to nothing, and their righteoufnefs. hath been as the morning cloud, and as the early dew, which paffeth away. And why fhould any man, merely upon account of a death-. bed repentance, reckon himself in a better condition than thofe perfons, who have done as much, and gone as

far

far as he? And there is no other difference between them but this, that the repentance of the former was tried, and proved infincere, but the death-bed repentance never came to a trial; and yet for all that, God knows whether it was fincere or not, and how it would have proved, if the man had lived longer. Why fhould any man, for offering up to God the mere refufe and dregs of his life, and the days which himself hath no pleasure in, expect to receive the reward of eternal life and happiness at his hands?

But though we do not defign to delay this work fo. long; yet we ought to confider, that all delays in a matter of this confequence are extremely dangerous; be cause we put off a bufinefs of the greatest concernment to the future, and in fo doing put it to the hazard whe ther ever it fhall be done for the future is as much out of our power to command, as it is to call back the time: which is paft. Indeed if we could arreft time, and strike: off the nimble wheels of his chariot, and, like Joihua,. bid the fun ftand ftill, and make opportunity tarry as long as we had occafion for it; this were fomething to. excufe our delay, or at least to mitigate or abate the folly and unreasonableness of it: but this we cannot do. It is in our power, under the influence of God's grace and Holy Spirit, to amend: our lives now; but it is not in our power to live till to-morrow: and who will part with an estate in hand,, which he may presently enter upon the poffeffion of, for an uncertain reverfion? And yet thus we deal in the great and everlasting concernments of our fouls: we trifle away the present oppor tunities of falvation, and vainly promife to ourselves the future we let go that which is in our power, and fond ly difpofe of that which is. out of our power, and in the hands of God.

Lay hold then upon the prefent opportunities, and look upon every action thou doft, and every opportuni ty of doing any, as poffibly thy laft; for fo it may prove, for any thing thou canst tell to the contrary. If a man's life lay at ftake, and he had but one throw for it, with what care and with what concernment would he manage that action? what thou art doing next, may, for ought. thou knoweft, be for thy life, and for all eternity. So much of thy life is most certainly paft; and God knows.

thou