great uncertainties ; the hand of providence may soon crop 5^011 off, long before you come to your flower. None are nearer to destruction than those that promise themselves a longer time in sin : Luke xii. 19, * Thou hast goods laid up for many years,' but ' Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.' 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. Eeason with thyself as Isaac, Gen. xxvii. 2 (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.' So reason, I have spent so nuich lime 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 no, and such affectionate offers and melting entreaties : Acts xiii. 46, 'Since you put away the word of God from you, you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life.' 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 : 2 Cor. vi. 1,2,' Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation : we beseech you receive not the grace of God in vain.' 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 ; Luke xiii. 7, ' These three years I came seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none : cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground ?' In that text there is — (1.) 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 harmonising the evangelists will appear that lie was just now entering upon his last half year they had his ministry among them. (2.) Their unthankful frustration, ' I find none,' nothing answerable to what means they enjoyed. (3.) God's terrible denuncia- tion, ' 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 : 2 Tiiu. ii. 25, ' If God per- adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.' 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 : Gen. vi. 3, ' My Spirit shall not always strive with man.' 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 : Isa. Iv. 6, ' Call upon him while he is near, and while he may be found.' 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
140 SERMONS uroN rsALM cxix. [Ser. LXVII.
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 yon slip that, and leave it upon such great uncertainties ?
[4.] There is an uncertainty in this ; we are not certain of haviug 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.
Beas. 4. The fourth reason is the great mischief of delay.
1. The longer we delaj'' the greater indisposition is there upon us to embrace the ways of God. 0 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 afiections more engaged and rooted in a course of sin : Jer. xiii. 23, ' Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.' 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. AVhen 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 farther off from God.