mediate repentance may be enforced upon this reason; that admitting a man has both time and grace to repent, yet by such delay the work will be incredibly more difficult. The longer a debt lies unpaid, the greater it grows; and not discharged, is quickly multiplied. The sin to be repented of will be the greater, and power and strength to repent by, will be less. And though a man escapes death, the utmost effect of his distemper, yet certainly he will find it something to be cut, and scarified, and lanced, and to endure all the tortures of a deferred

cure.

And is it not better for a man, in the business of repentance, to rise up early, and take the morning of his years before him, while these heavenly penitential dews fall kindly and naturally, than when his day is far spent, and the heat of temptation has scorched them off from his heart, and they are gone; and he must be forced to struggle for every tear, to pump for every drop, to recover and refresh his languishing, and otherwise dying soul? I say, is it not much better, while his conscience is tender, and apt to relent under every motion and impression of the word, while his wound is green, and his heart bleeds yet afresh, to stop the bloody issue of sin with the healing balsam of a bleeding Saviour, applied quick and warm, by a speedy humiliation?

By a single commission of sin, a blot falls upon the soul; but by continuance, it soaks into it. And when once sin comes to have that desperate symptom of being inveterate, an ordinary repentance will not serve turn. The stain must lie and steep a great while longer; the brine must be sharper, and the

repentance severer, before the soul can be recovered to its first whiteness and integrity.

God, who at first might have been won by entreaties, must now be wrestled with; and a man suffer many foils and repulses in his spiritual conflict, endure many bitter agonies, pass under much darkness and doubt, as to the whole matter of his eternal condition, before he can recover upon his heart a sense of God's lost favour. And perhaps when at length it does return, it is but weak and imperfect, mingled with much fear and spiritual dissatisfaction. As when the clouds have spread themselves thick and dark over the face of the whole heavens, the showers must fall, and it may continue raining for many days before you can so much as see the sun; and when at length he shines forth, yet it is but waterishly, and through the cloud, with a dim, uncomfortable brightness: just so is it with a sinner in his deferred repentance.

O remember David, his roarings and cryings, his broken bones, his mournful days, and his sleepless nights. Why, what was the cause of all this? In Psalm xxxviii. My wounds stink and are corrupt, because of my foolishness. They festered and grew noisome, only by his foolish deferring of the cure. For all agree, that it was near a year, that David lay in his two great sins, before he repented.

But on the contrary, in Peter, who followed his sin close at the heels, who rose betimes to his work; as soon as ever the cock crew, and the alarm was given, we find that the matter of controversy was quickly taken up between Christ and him: and being thus converted, he had the honour to strengthen

his brethren, and to be the great leading man and captain of the apostles.

Consider therefore, that the speedy penitent has a much fairer reception and easier discharge from God, than he that lingers; whose repentance, though it may prove sincere, yet it still comes with this degrading circumstance, that a delayed courtesy does, diu noluit.

We know, he that brings ready money has a thing much cheaper than another, together with an overplus of more credit and esteem into the bargain. In like manner the late penitent, like the late paymaster, though by such a repentance he may secure himself from the final arrests of damnation, yet still it is something sordid and degenerous.

Consider also, that God is so much pleased with an early penitence, that he is ready to accept that which is in itself a duty, as a gift; at least, to reward it for such. Besides, he that is slow to attempt this great work, though his repentance may be real and sincere, yet he will scarce be able to know that it is so; and then, though his condition may be sure, yet his comfort cannot be entire; but though he is at peace with God, yet he will hardly be at peace with himself: in the mean time the early penitent has repentance, with these two incredible advantages, he repents with facility and with certainty. I have now done: you have heard the duty, and the arguments to enforce it; how that the neglect of it is a bold venture upon God's justice and that no man can be sure of time and opportunity to repent; nor, admitting this, can he promise himself grace and ability to execute this

work and lastly, supposing that he has both, yet the work will be trebly more difficult and laborious, and at the best uncomfortable and dubious. Add to this, that God may thunder out his judgments; which will overtake and force us to mend our pace : and, because we would not repent upon a fairer invitation, force us to lie down and repent in shame, poverty, and sickness; and to heighten spiritual desertions with temporal afflictions.

Since this is so, I shall wrap up all in that advice of the prophet Amos to Israel, in the fourth chapter, verse 12, Thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, therefore prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. As for any other application, since deductions from the words are natural and easy, I shall leave it to your own thoughts; and indeed these truths are of that nature, that he that really believes them cannot but apply them,

SERMON XXXVI.

REVELATION ii. 16.

Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

As before I enforced the duty of immediate repentance, and disputed against the deferring of it, by arguments drawn from the unreasonableness of such a course; so now I shall further proceed against it, from a consideration of the strong, peculiarly provoking nature of this sin above all others; though indeed, in propriety of speech, impenitence cannot be called a sin, but rather a collection and combination of sins, or a sinful state and condition.

But certain it is, that there is nothing that kindles the divine wrath to such a flame, as the delayed exercise of the great duty of repentance. We find not such fierce expressions of vengeance against any sinner, as the Spirit of God, in Deut. xxix. 20, 21, discharges against him that obstinately delayed his repentance. It is said, "that God will not spare him: "that the anger of the Lord, nay, his jealousy, which "is

is the very sting and poison of his anger, shall "smoke against that man; that all the curses of "the law shall lie upon him; that God shall blot

out his name from under heaven; and lastly, that " he shall even separate him to evil, according to all "the curses of the covenant."