not but he may lengthen out your trials, and tarry till the fourth watch of the night before he come with deli verance. 2. Provide a stock of evidences or marks of grace, and of the love of God, that you may be able to affert your intereft in Kim as your portion in Chrift, and may be perfuaded that neither death nor life will ever feparate you from him. 3. Get a ftock of divine experiences. Lay up all the experiences you have had of God's loving-kindness, and thefe will give greater relief and encouragement to the foul in the day of distress. 4. Lay up a ftock of fermons. Treafure up the counfels and cordials which they bring you from God's word, that so you may, according to Ifa. xlii. 23. hear for the time to come; and efpecially for fick-beds, when you cannot get fermons to hear, Then it is, that you ought to live and feed upon the fermons you have heard. 5. Lay up a stock of prayers. Be much in wreftJing with God for help and through-bearing in the day of affliction; and fo you may expect the gracious returns thereof in the day of calamity. 9. Provide a stock of promifes. 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 fupporting to you in the day of affliction. DIRECT. IX. Let thofe who are in health fet about the work of Repentance, and turning to God in Chrift timeously and quickly: And beware of delaying this work until the time of fickness and dying. GOD's command to you is, to fet about the work prefently without any delay, Heb. iii. 15. " To-day if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Matt. xxi. 28. "Go work to day in my vineyard." Eccl. 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. to-day. But the devil's voice is to-morrow And which of the two will you hearken to? furely it is your wif dom to obey the voice of your Creater and Friend, and not of your enemy and deftroyer. Why? To-day thou art in health, to-morrow thou mayeft be in fickness; to day thou art on earth, to-morrow thou mayest be in hell; to-day Chrift is inviting you to come to him, tomorrow he may be fentencing you to depart from him. And confider, that the devil, who tempts you to delay this day, will be as ready to tempt you to the fame tomorrow; and fo the devil's to-morrow will never come. It will still be to-morrow with him till the last hour, that fo he may get you beguiled out of your whole time and falvation together. Here I fhall endeavour two things: 1. Bring arguments to perfuade you to repent and clofe with the of fers of Christ prefently, without any delay, as God requires. 2. Shew the evil and danger of delaying till the time of fickness and of dying. As to the first, viz. arguments for prefent repentance, and against delaying the work: morrow, 1. Confider 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 noftrils, which may be ftopped by death ere you be aware; thou knoweft not what will be to-morrow, Prov. xxvii. 1. It was the faying of a godly man, when invited to a feaft upon the "I have not had a morrow for these many years." It was a bad ufe thefe Epicureans made of this uncertainty, Ifa. xxii. 13. "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we fhall die." It is much wifer to fay, "Let us pray and turn to the Lord, for to-morrow we shall die." Nay, you have no fecurity for one hour to repent in for God hath a thousand diseases and accidents ready to ftop your breath and end your days, whenever he pleafeth to give them orders. There are many fecure finners, who prefume on long life, but there are none nearer to destruction than fuch; for God loves to difappoint those that promise themselves a long life in fin and impenitency, as he did that rich man who was laying up for many years, Luke xii. 19. Luke xii. 19. "This night fhall Hh 2 thy thy foul be required of thee." And O what a dark and difmal night will it be, if death comes before thy repentance! O man, thou never didft lie down one night with affurance of rifing again; thou never didft draw one breath with affurance of drawing another. What madnefs is it then to del y falvation work one day or hour longer, and fo to leave the weightieft matter in the world at the greatest uncertainty ! 2. Confider, that though God in his wonderful mercy and patience fhould prolong your days, yet the longeft life is short enough for the work you have to do, fuppofe you begin it prefently. Nay, had you Methu falem's years to fpend, they would be no more than fufficient to repent and mourn for the fins and guilt which you have been fo long contracting; to perform and amend the many things that have been amifs; to perform all the duties incumbent on you; to make sure your calling and election, and put your fouls in a good pofture and preparation for an eternal ftate, and get them made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the faints in light. Now, do you think that all this work can be done in an instant, or in a time of fickness or old age, when you are hardly fit to do any thing?When a man's fpirit is unable to bear the infirmities of nature, how will he be able to bear the lathes of a guilty confcience, or a wounded fpirit? When the underftanding is weak, the memory frail, the will obftinately bent the wrong way, by a long cuftom of finning and neglecting of duty; will that be a fit time to be gin the work of repentance and converfion to God? When nature is decayed, and the candle of life juft finking in the focket, will you begin then to act for God, and make your light thine before men to his glory? O remember, your work is long, your time is fhort, and though you begin this very hour, you will have no time to spare. 3. Delay not this work, because it is not in your power to do it when you please. It is a delufion of the devil, to imagine you may repent when you will. No, no; it is God only that giveth repentance, aud he gives it when, and to whom he pleaseth, Acts v. 31. And it is a mére peradventure, if ever he give it to a delaying finner, 2 Tim. i. 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 falvation." To-day, when God is calling, and the Spirit ftriving, 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 clofed, and the door of mercy. fhut. If you refuse the Spirit when he ftrives with you, he may leave you, and never put another ferious thought in your heart of turning to the Lord. O defer not feeking 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 feek it with tears, Indeed, God hath promifed mercy to penitent finners; but he hath no where promifed 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 forrow for fin, without faith and fruits meet for re pentance; he hath no where promised to pardon those, who at laft promife to leave their fins, when they can keep them no longer. 4. The longer repentance and closing with Chrift is delayed, the difficulty thereof is every day increased. Why? 1. Because of the deceitful nature of fin, which doth daily bewitch and harden the heart more and more in the practice of it. 2. Custom in any thing hath a Arange influence on us, and becomes a kind of fecond nature, and breeds an almost invisible inclination to whatsoever we have long addicted ourselves unto, whither it be in action natural or moral. Hence Ovid gives that good advice. Sed propera, nec te venturas differ in horas: Be fpeedy; put not off till another time: He who is not prepared to day, will be more unprepared to-morrow. He He that goes on from day to day, in fin, will find his indifpofition to repent daily increased, the habits of fin ftrengthened, and himself brought at length under the power of an inveterate custom. And if it be hard to break any cuftom, much more a custom in finning, which is fo agreeable to depraved nature. Hence, faith the Spirit of God, Jer. xiii. 23. "Can the Ethiopian change his fkin, or the Leopard his fpots? Then may ye alfo do good, that are accustomed to do evil." 3. The longer Satan keeps possession, the more difficult will his ejection prove. The devils that poffeffed the man from the womb up, could not be caft out but by fome extraordinary way. 4. Delays bring on spiritual judg. ments from God, fuch as judicial hardness on the heart, which will make repentance impoffible, according to that terrible place, Ifa. vi. 9. 10. "Make the heart of this people fat," &c. Which is quoted no less than fix times in the New Teftament, as if it belonged only to them that linger and fit impenitent under gofpel-calls. Laftly, We would reckon fuch delays madness in earthly affairs, which are but trifles when compared to falvation-work. If a man's house were on fire, we would count him mad, if he would fay, it is time enough to quench it to-morrow: or if he were ftung with a venemous ferpent, he would be mad that neglected to feek a prefent cure: or, if he had got poison in his ftomach, he would never think he could foon enough vomit it up. If a malefactor were condemned to a cruel death to-morrow, but had a promife of a remiffion, if he should look after it to day; would he be fo foolish as delay it till next morning? But how much greater madnefs is it to delay repenting and fleeing to Chrift, when God's calls and promifes relate to the prefent time, and our danger in delaying is infinitely greater than in any of the forefaid cafes? Surely there is no fting fo dangerous, no poifon fo deadly as fin; and can we too foon feek after the balm of Gilead, the blood of Christ for its cure? There is no death like the second death, no fire fo dreadful as the eternal fire of God's wrath; now this fire is already kindled against your fouls; |