Jrg. 4. The infinite importance and weight of salvation, is alone, instead of all motives and arguments, to make men prize and im- prove every proper season for it. It is no ordinary concern, it is your life, yea, it is your eternal life ; the solemnity and awfulness of such a business as this is enough to swallow up the spirit of man. O what an awful sound have such words as these. Ever with the Lord ? Suppose you saw the glory of heaven, the full reward of all the labours and sufferings of the saints, the blessed harvest of all their prayers, tears, diligence, and self-denial in this world ; or sup- pose you had a true representation of the torments of hell, and could but hear the waihngs of the damned, for the neglect of the season of mercy, and their passionate, but vain wishes for one of those days which they have lost : Would you think any care, any
A TREATISE OF THE SOl'L OF MAN. gS^
pains, any self-denial too much, to save and redeem one of these opportunities ? Surely you would have a far higher estimation of them than ever you had in your lives.
A trial for a man's whole estate is accounted a solemn business among men ; the cast of a dye for a man's life is a weighty action, and seldom done without anxiety of the mind, and trembling of the hand : Yet both these are but children's play compared with salvation-work.
Three things put an unspeakable solemnity upon this matter; it is the precious soul, which is above all valuation, that lies at stake, and is to be saved, or lost. The saving or losing of it is not for a time, but for ever ; and this is the only season in which it will be eternally saved or cast away : All hangs upon a little inch of time, which, being over-slipt and lost, is never more to be recalled or re- covered. Lord ! zo'ith what serious spirits, deep and iceighty con^ siderations^Jears, and tremblings of heart, should men and women attend the seasons of their salvatioii !
Believe it, reader, since thy soul projected its first thoughts, there never was a more weighty and concerning subject than this present- ed to thy thoughts. O ! therefore, let not thy thoughts trifle about it, and slide from it as they use to do in other things of com- mon concernment.
Arg. 5. If we set any value on the true pleasure of life, or solid comfort of our souls at death, let us by no means neglect the spe- cial seasons and opportunities of salvation we now enjoy.
These two things, the pleasure of life, and comforts in death, should be prized by every man more than his two eyes ; certainly no being at all is more desirable than a being without these : Take away the true, spiritual pleasure of life, and you level the life of man with the beast that perisheth ; and take away the hope and com- fort of the soul in death, and you sink him infinitely below the beasts, and make him a being only capable of misery for ever.
Now there can be no true, spiritual pleasure found in that soul that has neglected and lost his only season of salvation : All the so- lid delight and comfort of life results from the settlement and se- curity of a man's great concern in the proper season thereof. The true mirth of the converted Prodigal bears date from the time of his return, and reconciliation to his father, Luke xv. 24. Two things are absolutely pre-requisite to the comfort of life, mz. a change of the state by justification, and a change of the frame and temper of the heart hy sanctification. To be in a pardoned state, is a matter of all joy, Mat. ix. 2. and " to be spiritually minded is life and peace," Rom. viii. 6. No good news comes to any man before this ; and no bad news can sink a man's heart after this.
And for hope and comfort in death, let none be fond to expect
2S4l A TREATISE OF THE SOIL OF MAN,
it, till he has first complied with, and obeyed God's call itt the time tliereof : A careless life never did, nor never will produce a comfortable death. What is more common among all that die, not stupid and senseless, as well as unregenerate and christless, than the bitter, dolorous complaints of their mis-spent time, and los- ing their seasons of mercy ? Reader, if thou wouldest not feel that anguish thou hast seen and heard others to he in on this account, know the time of thy visitation, and finish thy great xcoih whilst it is day.
Arg. 6. Neglect no season of salvation which is graciously af- forded you, because your time is short; death and eternity are at the door. " You know that you must shortly put off these taber- " nacles/' 2 Pet. i. 13, 14. that when a few years are come, you " shall go the way whence you shall not return," Job xvi. 22. All tlie living are listed soldiers, and must conflict, hand to hand, with that dreadful enemy death, and there is no discharge in that war, Eccles. viii. 8. It will be in vain to eay. You are not willing to die ; for willing, or unwilling, away you must go, when death calls vou. It will be as vain to say. You are not ready ; for ready or unready you must be gone when death comes. Your readiness to die would indeed be a cordial to your hearts in death ; but then you must improve and ply the time of life, and husband your op- portunities diligently ; carelessness of life, and readiness for death are inconsistent, and exclusive of each other. The bed is sweeter to none than the hard labourer, and the grave comfortable to none but the laborious Christian. You know nothing can be done by you after death ; the compositum is then dissolved ; you cease to be ■what you were, to enjoy the means you had, and to work as you did. O therefore slip not the only season you have, both of attain- ing the end of life, and escaping the danger and hour of death.
I shall close all with a word of exhortation, persuading (if possi- ble) the careless and unthinking neglecters of their precious time and souls, to awake out of that deep and dangerous security in which they lie fast asleep on the very brink of eternity, and " to-day, whilst it is yet called to-day," to hear God's voice call- ing them to repentance and faith, and thereby to Christ and ever- lasting blessedness. " Behold, he yet stands at the door, and " knocks,"" Rev. iii. 20. The door of hope is not yet finally shut, there are yet some stirrings at certain times in men's consci- ences: God comes near them in his word, and in some rousing acts of providence, the death of a near relation, the seizure of a dangerous disease, the blasting and disappointment of a man's great design and project for this world, a fall into some notorious sin ; these, and many such like methods of providence, as well as the
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 235