Imatges de pàgina
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then possess you of a holy and unholy life! How mad you will think them that had but one life's time of preparation for eternal life, and desperately neglected it: and how sensible you will then be of the wisdom of believers, that knew their time, and used it while they had it. Now "wisdom is justified of all her children;" but then how sensibly will it be justified of all its enemies! O with what gripes will undone souls look back on a life of mercy and opportunities, thus basely undervalued, and slept away in dreaming idleness, and fooled away for things of naught.

The language of that damned rich man, Luke xvi. may help you in your predictions. O how will you wonder at yourselves that ever you could be so blind and senseless as to be no more affected with the warnings of the Lord, and with the forethoughts of everlasting joy or misery! To have but one small part of time to do all that ever must be done by you for eternity, and say all that ever you must say for your own or others' souls, and that this was spent in worse than nothing! To have but one uncertain life, in which you must run the race that wins or loseth heaven for ever; and that you should be tempted by a thing of naught, to lose that one irrecoverable opportunity, or to sit still or run another way, when you should have been making haste with all your might! O sirs, the thoughts of this will be other kind of thoughts another day, than now you feel them; you cannot now think how the thoughts of this will then affect you! That you had a time in which you might have prayed, with promise of acceptance, and had no hearts to take that time! That Christ was offered you as well as he was offered them that entertained him; that you were called on and warned as well as they, but obstinately despised and neglected all! That life and death were set before you, and the everlasting joys were offered to your choice, against the charms of sinful pleasures, and you might have freely had them if you would, and were told that holiness was the only way, and that it must be now or never, and yet that you chose your own destruction! These thoughts will be part of hell to the ungodly. They will wonder that reason could be so unreasonable; and they that had the common wit of man in other matters should be so far beside themselves in that which is the only thing that it is commendable to be

wise for, that such sottish reasonings should prevail with them against the clearest light, and nothing should be preferred before all things, and arguments fetched from chaff and dung, should conquer those that were fetched from heaven! O what heart-rending thoughts will these be, when eternity shall afford them leisure for an impartial review! Yea, that they should deceive others also with such a gross deceit, and scorn at all that would not be as mad as they; that being drunken with the world's delusion, they should abuse all that were truly sober; that the one thing needful, should seem to them a needless thing; that their tongues should plead for these delusions of their wicked hearts, and they should be enemies to those that would not be enemies to God, and to themselves, and cast away their time and souls as they did! They will wonder with self-indignation, what could bewitch them into so great unreasonableness, below a man, against the light of nature, as well as of supernatural revelation.

Honourable and beloved hearers, I beseech you do not take it ill, that I speak so much of these matters that are so unpleasant and unwelcome to unbelieving, careless, carnal hearts; it is, that I may prevent all this in time, by the awakenings of true repentance and O that this might be the success! That I might hear by your penitent confessions, and see by your universal, speedy reformations, that God hath so great mercy for you, and that these persuasions might be the means of so much happiness to you, and comfort unto me! However, this assembly shall be witnesses that you were warned; and conscience shall be witness, that if you waste the rest of your days in the pleasures and vanities of this deceitful world, it was not because you could have no better, and were not called to higher things; that if you yet stand idle, it is not because you could not be hired; for in the name of Christ I have called you into his vineyard, and told you of his work and wages, and shamed your excuses and objections this day. Come away then speedily from the snares of sinners, and the company of hardened, deceived men, and cast away the works of darkness. Heaven is before you! Death is at hand! The eternal God hath sent to call you! Mercy doth yet stretch forth its arms! You have staid too long, and abused pa

tience too much already: stay no longer! O now please God, and comfort us, and save yourselves by resolving that this shall be the day; and faithfully performing of this your resolution. Up and be doing: believe, repent, desire, obey, and do all this with all your might. Love him that you must love for ever, and love him with all your soul and might; seek that which is truly worth a seeking, and will pay for all your cost and pains: and seek it first with all your might; remembering still it must be now or never.

Before I conclude, I have two messages yet to deliver to the servants of the Lord: the one is of Encouragement: the other of Direction.

I know that many of you have a three-fold trouble, which requireth a three-fold comfort and encouragement.

One is, that you have done so little of your work; but lost so much of your time already: another is, that you are so opposed and hindered. And the greatest of all is, that you are yet so dull and slow; the cure of which must be the matter of my Directions.

1. For the first: That you have lost your time, must be the matter of your humiliation: but that all is not lost, before you see your sin and duty; but yet the patience and mercy of the Lord are attending you, and continuing your hope; this is the matter of your comfort and encouragement. Repent, therefore, that you came no sooner home; but rejoice that you are come home at last; and now be more diligent in redeeming your time, in remembrance of the time already lost: and though it must be your grief that your master hath been deprived of so much of his service, and others of so much good which you should have done them, and that time is lost that cannot be recalled; yet it is your comfort, that your own reward may be equal with them that have borne the burden and heat of the day; for many that are last (in the time of their coming in) shall be first (in receiving the reward). This is the meaning of that parable in Matt. xx. which was spoken to encourage them that had stood out too long, and to rebuke the envy and high expectations of them that came in sooner; and it is no whit contradictory to those passages in Matt. xxv. which intimate a different degree of glory to be given to them that have different degrees of grace upon their industrious improve

ment. The one parable, (Matt. xx.) shews that men shall not be rewarded differently for their longer or shorter continuance in the work, but that those that come in late, and yet are found with equal holiness, shall be rewarded equally with the first; and more, if their holiness be more; which the second parable expresseth, declaring God's purpose to give them the greatest glory, that have improved their holiness to the greatest measure. O, therefore, that the sense of your former unkindness might provoke you the more resolvedly to give up yourselves in fervent love, and full obedience: and then you will find that your time is redeemed, though it cannot be recalled; and that mercy hath secured your full reward. O what an unspeakable mercy is this; that if yet you will devote yourselves entirely to Christ, and serve him with your might, the little time that yet remains, he will take it as if you had come in at the first hour of the day!

2. And as for the opposition and hindrances in your way, they are no other than what your Lord foretold. He hath gone before you, and conquered much more than ever you will encounter from without, (though he had not a body of sin to conquer; and in that respect the conquest of his Spirit in his members, hath the preeminence of his personal conquest). He hath bid you be of good cheer, because he hath overcome the world. If you will not take up your cross and follow him, you cannot be his disciples'. Would you be soldiers on condition you may not fight, or fight and yet have no opposition? Follow the captain of your salvation; if mocking, or buffeting, or spitting in his face, or hanging him upon a cross, or piercing his side, would have made him give up the work of your redemption, you had been left to utter desperation. The opposition that is conquerable, should serve but to excite your courage and resolution in a case of such necessity, where you must prevail or perish. Have you God himself on your side, and Christ your Captain, and the Spirit of Christ to give you courage, and the promise to invite you, and heaven before you, hell behind you, and the examples of such an army of conquering believers; and shall the scorns or threats of a crawling worm prevail against all these for your discouragement? You are John xvi. 33. Luke xv 27. 33. N N

VOL. VII.

not afraid lest any man should pull down the sun, or dry up the sea, or overturn the earth; and are you afraid that man should conquer God? or take you out of the hands of Christ? Mark how they used David; "Every day they wrest my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul." But what, did he therefore fear, or fly from God? No; "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. In God will I praise his word; in God have I put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me "." Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings for the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation "." You deserve to be shut out of heaven, if you will not bear the breath of a fool's derision for it.

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3. But (saith the self-accusing soul) I am convinced that I ought to be laborious for my salvation, and that all this is too little that I can do; but I am dull, and cold, and negligent in all: I am far from doing it with my might: I hear, and read, and pray as if I did it not, and as if I were half asleep, or my heart were away upon somewhat else. I fear I am but a lazy hypocrite.'

Answ. I shall first speak to thy doubt, and then to direct thee against thy sin.

And first, you must be resolved whether your sloth be such as is predominant, or mortified; such as proveth that you are dead in sin; or only such as proveth you but diseased and infirm.

And to know this, you must distinguish, 1. Between the dulness and coldness of the affections, and the unresolvedness and disobedience of the soul. 2. Between a slothfulness that keepeth men from a godly life in a life of wickedness; and that which only keepeth them from some particular act of duty, or abateth the degree of their sincere affection and obedience. 3. Between that sloth that is the vicious habit of the will, and that which is the effect of age, or sickness, or melancholy, or other distemper of the body.

Rom. viii. 37. n John x. 28, 29. • Psal. lvi. 3—6. p Isa.li. 7, 8.

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