to get his room in an inn furnished, when he neglects his house where his constant abode is. In the other world, there is our long home; and, if all our care should be here for the present estate, where we tarry but for a night, but a little while, and neglect eternity, our everlasting happiness, that were a very great folly. That which is spiritual, which concerns our soul, should be preferred before that which is carnal and corporal, and only concerns the body; for the better part should have the most care. As, for instance, a man that is wounded and cut through his clothes and skin and all, will sooner look to have the wound closed up in his body, than the rent made up in his garment; so the distempers of the inward man should be first cured, before we look after the outward man, which is as it were the garment and clothing; for these outward things shall be "added." Here is your work, to please God, not satisfy the flesh. This is that which concerns us, not only for a while, but for ever, and concerns the inward man. This is the grand business of concernment; therefore, we should delay other things, rather than delay the work of our salvation: yet, usually, all other things have a quick dispatch, and this only is neglected and lies by the wall.

2. That this business of concernment is left upon great hazard and uncertainty.

(1.) Life is uncertain. He that does seriously consider the uncertain shortness of the present life, how can he delay a moment, lest he be called home to God before his great errand, for which he was sent into the world, be done? Many of you, when you seriously think of it, would not, for a thousand worlds, die the next day, so unprovided, unfurnished with promises, evidences, experiences; and yet it may be so, that that may be the time when they shall be called home to God. This life is but a "vapour" (James iv. 14), a little warm breath turned in and out by the nostrils, that is soon choked and stopped; and, "Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth" (Prov. xxvii. 1): as that devout person said when he was invited to a meal the next day, to come to-morrow to a feast, ‘I have not had a morrow for these many years.' We have no security for the next day, but our own word; and he that hath nothing but his own word to secure him, is very weakly secured. Life is short, and we make it shorter by continuing in sin. It is uncertain. If there were a fixed time and period wherein we knew our continuance should be in the world, then we should be tempted to wallow freely in our carnal lusts, and entertain sin a little longer, and put off repentance till hereafter. But God hath left life upon great uncertainties: the hand of Providence may soon crop you off long before you come to your flower. None are nearer to destruction than those that promise themselves a longer time in sin: "Thou hast much goods laid up for many years," but, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Luke xii. 19, 20). God loves to disappoint secure, careless souls, that promise themselves a longer life without his leave; he will break in upon a sudden. A poor, careless sinner would fain keep his soul a little longer. No; it is demanded now he doth not give it up, but it is taken away from him. Reason with thyself as Isaac (I allude to it), 'Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death, make me savoury meats that my soul may bless thee before I die' (Gen. xxvii. 2). So reason, I have spent so much time in the world, and I know not the day of my dissolution, when God will call me home. Oh! let me go to God, that he may bless me before I die!'

(2.) You know not whether the means of grace shall be continued to you or not, and such affectionate offers and melting entreaties: “ Seeing ye put it (the word of God) from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life" (Acts xiii. 46). God will not always wait upon a lingering sinner, but will take the denial and be gone. They judge themselves unworthy of that grace, they pass sentence upon themselves. "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation: we beseech you, receive not the grace of God in vain" (2 Cor. vi. 1, 2). God hath his seasons; and, when these are past, will not treat with us in such a mild, affectionate manner. The means of grace are removed from a people by strange providences, when they have slighted the offers of grace: These three years I came seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" (Luke xiii. 7.) In that text there is, (i.) God's righteous expectation, "These three years I came seeking fruit." He was the dresser of the vineyard, they were the three years of his ministry; as, by a serious harmonizing the evangelists, will appear that he was just now entering upon his last half-year they had his ministry among them. (ii.) Their unthankful frustration, "I find none," nothing answerable to what means they enjoyed. (iii.) God's terrible denunciation, "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" God will root up a people, or remove the means; and therefore, will ye leave it upon such uncertainties?

(3.) There is an uncertainty of grace: "If God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth" (2 Tim. ii. 25). It is a mere hazard; it may be he will, it may be not. It is uncertain whether

the Spirit of God will ever put in your heart a thought of turning to God again: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" (Gen. vi. 3). The Spirit of God strives for a long while, follows a sinner, casts in many an anxious thought, troubles and shakes him out of his carnal quiet and security; but this will not always last. Ah! Christians, there are certain seasons, if we had the skill to take hold of them; there is an appointed fixed time when God is nearer to us than at another time, and we shall never have our hearts at such an advantage: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near" (Isa. lv. 6). There are certain seasons which are times of finding. Some are of opinion that there are certain seasons when a man may be rich if he will; when God offereth him an opportunity for an estate in the world, if he knew the time and how to take hold of it. Certainly, to those that live under the means of grace, there is a time of finding, when God is nearer to them than at another time; and therefore will you slip that, and leave it upon such great uncertainties?

(4.) There is an uncertainty in this: we are not certain of having the use of our natural faculties: we may lose our understandings by a stupid disease; and God may bring a judgment upon those that dally with him in the work of repentance. It is a usual judgment upon them that while they were alive did forget God, when they come to die, to forget themselves, and have not the free use of their reason, but, invaded with some stupid disease, die in their sins, and so pass into another world.

REASON IV.-The fourth reason is the great mischief of delay.

1. The longer we delay, the greater indisposition is there upon us to embrace the ways of God. Oh! Christians, when we press you to holy things, to turn yourselves to the Lord, you begin to make some essay, and then are discouraged, and find it is hard and tedious to flesh and blood;

and so you give over. Now, mark; if it be hard to-day, it will be harder the next; so the third onward; for it is hardness of heart that makes the work of God hard. Now, the more we provoke God, the more we resist his call, the more hard the heart is: the impulsions of his grace are not so strong as before, and the heart every day is more hardened. As a path weareth the harder by frequent treading, so the heart is more hard, the mind more blind, the will more obstinate, the affections more engaged and rooted in a course of sin: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil" (Jer. xiii. 23). Oh! to break off an inveterate custom, is hard. A plant newly set is more easily taken up than a plant that hath taken root. When we grow old and rotten in the way of sin, it will be much harder for us than now it is: the longer we lie soaking here in sin, the further off from God.

2. We provide the more discomfort for ourselves. Always the proportion of our sorrow is according to the measure of our sins. Whether it be godly sorrow, the sorrow of repentance, or despairing sorrow, those horrors which are impressed upon us as a punishment of our rebellion and impenitency, in both senses you still increase your sorrow the more you sin. For the sorrow of repentance, it is clear that sorrow must carry proportion with our offences. She that had much forgiven, wept much. Certainly, it will cost you the more tears, a greater humbling before God, the longer you continue in a course of sin against him. And for the sorrow of punishment, you are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath (Rom. ii. 5); your burthen will be greater and more increased upon you. It is too heavy for your shoulders already to bear: why should we add to the weight of it? Either our sorrow of repentance will be greater, or the anxious sense of our punishment; for in both God observes, and God requires, a proportion.

3. Consider how unfit we shall be for God's service if we delay a little longer, when our strength is spent, and vigour of youth exhausted. When our ears grow deaf, eyes dim, understanding dull, affections spent, memory lost, is this a time to begin with God, and to look after the business of our souls? Certainly, he that made all, that was our Creator, deserves the flower of our strength (Eccl. xii. 1). When the tackling is spoiled and ship rotten, is that a time to put to sea; or, rather, when the ship is new built? Shall the Devil feast upon the flower and freshness of your youth, and God only have the scraps and fragments of the Devil's table? When we are good for nothing else, then to think we are good enough for God, and the business of religion, which requires all our might and all our strength! When we are spent, is it a time to begin our warfare; or in our youth?

ease.

4. There is this, the just suspicion which is upon a late repentance, it is seldom sound. It is no true repentance which ariseth merely from horror and fears of Hell. It may be but the beginnings of everlasting despair; and their desires may be but offers of self-love after their own All men seek the Lord at length; but wise men seek him betimes. The difference is made on some in time; on others, out of time, upon their death-beds. The most profane would have God for their portion, when they can sin no more, and enjoy the world no longer. How can we tell this is a sound work? It seems to be a very questionable thing, merely proceeding from self-love and natural desires of happiness in all men.

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When we begin with God, we begin out of self-love; we come for our ease and interest, that we may be safe and happy afterwards, we come to a delight of spirit in his service, and, having opportunity, show in our works the power of our affection to God, and manifest the soundness of our conversion. It is possible a death-bed repentance may be true; but it is very doubtful. There is but one instance, which is that of the thief upon the cross. The Scriptures are a history of five thousand years; yet all that while we have but one instance of a man that repented when he came to die; and in that one instance, there is an extraordinary conjunction of circumstances, such as will never fall out again: Christ was at the thief's right hand, in the height of his love drawing sinners to salvation; and probably this man had never any such call till then. Some may at the eleventh hour be converted, because they were not called till then. Every one came when they were called. Therefore, there being so great and just a suspicion that lies against a late repentance, certainly we should not delay.

REASON V.-The reasons for delay are very inconsiderable. Solomon saith, "The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason (Prov. xxvi. 16). Mark, as Solomon's fool is not to be taken literally but spiritually, so Solomon's sluggard is not to be taken morally but spiritually. They that are sluggish and slow of heart in the things of God, they think they have a great deal of reason on their side, and will not be persuaded on the contrary but they shall do well enough for all that; and they can argue against the calls and injunctions of God; yet how little can they say for themselves! See what reasons may be said for delay! I mean not that they plead and argue, but it is that which sways them, that which lies next the heart is this; why they keep off from God, and are satisfied with their present estate.

1. The pleasures of sin are sweet, and they are loath to forego them, and to engage their souls in the severities of a strict obedience. Here is the bottom reason: this is that which sways them. I will not speak to this plea as it lies against conversion itself, but only as it makes men to delay. If I were to plead for conversion itself, I would tell these carnalists of higher pleasure; that their delights shall not be abrogated, but preserved; their delight shall be transplanted from Egypt to Canaan, that it may thrive and prosper in a happier soil; that they may have purer contentments, and those chaste and happy satisfactions of enjoying communion with God. But I shall only deal with them as it relates to the delay of conversion. Therefore I thus argue: these pleasures of sin must one day be renounced, or you are for ever miserable; and, if you must one day, why not now? For, mark; sin will be as sweet hereafter as now it is, and salvation is always dispensed upon the same terms. You cannot be saved hereafter with less ado, or bring down Christ and Heaven to a lower rate; and therefore, if this be a reason now, it will ever lie as a reason against Christ and religion: then you will never tend to look after the ways of life if you are loath to part with sin now, you will never part with it. The laws of Christianity are always the same: God will not bate you anything of repentance; and your heart is not like to be better but worse. That is the sum of it; and therefore this reason signifies nothing when it comes to be tried in the balance of the sanctuary, and yet this is the main reason.

2. They can plead other things, hope God will be merciful to them

hereafter; though they indulge themselves a little longer in sin, he will at length save them. I answer, you cannot bend his mercy and make it safe, it is a mere uncertainty; peradventure he will, peradventure not. Would you take poison out of hope that afterward you may meet with an antidote? And this is the very case between God and us. I answer further, there are shrewd suspicions that God will not be merciful to those that run such a desperate adventure. For whoever delays his repentance, doth in effect pawn his soul with the Devil, and leaves it in his hands, and says, 'Here, Satan, keep my soul: if I fetch it not again by such a day, it is thine for ever.' And can you think mercy will bring it out? Again, there are great causes of fear, because there is such a thing as judicial hardness of heart, by a sentence of obduration. There are some that God gives up to their own ways and counsels, and God inflicts this sentence upon those that continue in sin, notwithstanding conviction of their hearts to the contrary: "Ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I will also laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh" (Prov. i. 24). There are thousands in Hell merely upon this account, that have forfeited the benefit of God's mercy, and tenders of his grace, and have been shut up by hardness of heart, by God's sentence of obduration; the most dreadful punishment that can light upon a creature on this side Hell.

3. 'Ay, but we are willing, and would turn to the Lord now, but we have no leisure, and have not those conveniences that we shall have hereafter; for then we shall get things into a better frame and posture.' Oh! no, no; it is mere hypocrisy to think you are willing when you delay; for there is nothing hinders but a want of will, and a loathness to comply with the commands of God. When we dare not flatly deny, then we delay. Non vacat, that is the sinner's plea, I am not at leisure;' but, Non placet, there is the reality. They which were invited to the wedding varnished their denial over with an excuse (Matt. xxii. 7). Delay is a denial; for, if they were willing, there would be no excuse. To be rid of importunate and troublesome creditors, we promise them payment another time; and we know our estate will be more wasted by that time, it is but to put them off: so this delay and putting off God is but a shift. Here is the misery, God always comes unseasonably to a carnal heart. It was the devils that said, "Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" (Matt. viii. 29.) Good things are a torment to a carnal heart; and they always come out of time. Certainly, that is the best time when the word is pressed upon the heart with evidence, light, and power, and when God treats with thee about thine eternal peace.

REASON VI.-There are very urgent reasons to quicken us to make haste.

1. The state wherein we are at present, is so bad and dangerous that we can never soon enough come out of it. The state of a man in his carnal condition is compared in Scripture to a prison: "God hath concluded [or shut up] them all in unbelief” (Rom. xi. 32). And mark, it is a pri

son that is all on fire. Oh! when poor captives are bolted and shut up in a flaming prison, how will they run hither and thither to get out! So should we run and strive to get out of this flaming prison. You cannot be too soon out of the power of the Devil, or from under the curse of the law, the danger of hell-fire and the dominion of sin: "Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matt. iii. 7.) He doth not say, to