would quickly give them ease, and turn their hell into a heaven ? I was last winter with a young man, who upon his dying bed for several hours together, being in a dreadful agony, lay crying out, I am damned, I am damned, I am damned, I am damned ! Ah, how soon would this poor wretch have got out of this hell, if it had been so easy a thing to have repented, as you imagine it is ! and how many, when they have been pressed to repent, have professed, that if they might have a thousand worlds to repent, they could not repent 1 And will you say that repentance is easy ? How many have sought repentance with tears, and would have bought repentance with the price of their dearest blood, but could not obtain it ! and will you say that repent- ance is easy ? 0 sirs, is it good to be damned ? is it good to go to hell ? is it good to dwell with a devouring fire, and to live in ever- lasting burnings ? Is it good to have your habitations amongst devils and damned spirits ? Is it good to be banished the court of heaven, and to be separated for ever from the glorious presence of God, and the sweet enjoyments of Christ, and the blessed society of angels and saints, and the fruition of aU the happiness that heaven affords ? Oh no ! oh no ! Oh, why then do not men prevent all this by repentance, if it be such an easy thing to repent ! But,
[5.] Lastly, If repentance be such an easy work, ivhy then do your hearts so rise both against the doctrine of repentance, and against those that preach it and press it? Of all words, is not the word of repent- ance the hardest word to read ? John vi. 60. And of all sayings and sermons, is not that of repentance the hardest to hear and bear? Luther confesses that before his conversion he met not with a more displeasing word in all the Scripture, nor in all his study of divinity, than that word repent. 0 man ! if repentance be so easy, why doth thy spirit rage, and why doth thy heart so swell and rise against those that preach repentance unto life ? Of all preachers, there are none that do so displease and move thee, that do so cut and gall thee, as those that are still a-crying out, ' Kepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,' Mat. iii. 2. Repentance is the vomit of the soul ; and ah, how do sinners' hearts rise against that physic, and those that bring it ! Repentance is the bleeding of the soul ; and ah, how do wicked men storm and take on at that hand that lets them blood ! You love those that preach pleasing things, that tickle your ears, though they never touch your hearts ; that please your fancies, though they never meddle with your consciences ; and one sermon of mercy you prefer before a thousand sermons of repentance.^ Now certainly if repent- ance were so easy to you, the doctrine of repentance would be more pleasing to you. For a close, know that that white devil who now presents repentance to thee as the easiest thing in the world, he will at last cast, to work thee to despair, and to cut the throat of thy soul, present it not only as a hard and difiicult work, but as an impossible work. Oh that these things may be so blessed unto you, as to preserve you from being deceived and deluded with a conceit that repentance is easy, and so by this means keep you from labouring to be holy !
Now as to that part of the plea, from the scriptures formerly cited— viz., that hereafter will be time enough to repent — I shall thus reply: 1 Isa. XXX. 10 ; Jer. v. 30, 31 ; xiv. 14, and xxiii. 11 to the end.
196 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XII. 14.
1. First, Certainly the present call of God, the uncertainty of the Spirit's motion, and the danger of delay, calls upon thee for present repentance. It is a dangerous thing to deal with God, as ill debtors do by their creditors ; first they put them off one week, and then another week, and then a third week, &c., till at last they provoke their creditors to cast them into prison, and to practise all severity upon them. They that thus deal with God shall be as severely dealt with by God, as you may see in Prov, i. 24-32. The ancient warriors would not receive an old man into their army ; and dost thou think, 0 vain man ! that when thou hast spent thy time, and wasted thy strength, and exhausted thy spirits in the work of Satan, and in the service of thy lusts, that God will receive thee to his grace and favour ? If thou dost thus flatter thyself, it is ten thousand to one but that thou wilt deceive thyself ; that God, that hath made a promise to late repentance, hath made no promise of late repentance ; and though true repentance is never too late, yet late repentance is seldom true. Ah, how many millions are now in hell, who have thought, and resolved, and said that they would repent hereafter, but that hereafter never came ! Thou sayest to-morrow, to-morrow thou wilt repent, when thou knowest not what a to-morrow will bring forth. Alas ! how many thousand ways may death surprise thee before to-morrow comes ! Though there be but one way to come into the world, yet there is a thousand thousand ways to be sent out of the world. "^ Oh, the diseases, the hazards, the dangers, the accidents, the deaths, that daily, that hourly attend the life of man ! A Jewish Rabbin, pressing the practice of repentance upon his disciples, exhorted them to be sure to repent the day before they died ; to which one of them replied, that the day of a man's death was very uncertain ; to which the Rabbin made answer. Repent, therefore, every day, and then you shall be sure to repent the day before you die. O sirs, except you do repent to-day, you cannot tell that you shall repent the day before you die ; for who knows to-day but that he may die to-morrow ? It was once demanded of one, [Augustine,] what he would say of a wicked man who had lived loosely but died penitently, &c. ; to whom he replied, What would you have me to say ? That he is damned ? I will not, for I have nothing to do to judge him. Shall I say that he is saved ? I dare not, for I would not deceive thee. What then ? Why, this. Repent thou out of hand, and thou art safe, whatever is become of him. Ah, friends, you are never safe till you repent ; it is repentance that puts you out of all danger of miscarrying for ever. Shall the husbandman take his present seasons for sowing and reaping ? shall the good tenant repair his house while the weather is fair ? shall the careful pilot take his advantage of wind and tide, and so put out to sea ? shall the traveller mend his pace when he sees the night comes on ? and shall the smith strike when the iron is hot ? — and shall not we take the present opportunity of repenting and turning to the Lord, rememberiag that there will be a time when time shall be no more ; and when there shall be no place found for repentance, though it should be sought carefully with tears, Heb.