is the bottom reason, this is, that which sways them. I will not speak to this plea as it lies against conversion itself, but only as it makes men to delay. If I were to plead for conversion itself, I would tell these carnalists of higher pleasure ; that their delights shall not be abrogated, but preserved ; their delight shall be transplanted from Egypt to Canaan, that it may thrive and prosper in a happier soil ; that they may have purer contentments, and those chaste and happy satisfactions of enjoying communion with Grod. But I shall only deal with them as it relates to the delay of conversion. Therefore I thus argue : These pleasures of sin must one day be renounced, or you are for ever miser- able ; and if you must one day, wdiy not now ? For mark, sin will be as sweet hereafter as it now is, and salvation is always dispensed upon the same terms ; you cannot be saved hereafter with less ado, or bring down Christ and heaven to a lower rate ; and, therefore, if this be a I'eason now, it will ever lie as a reason against Christ and religion, then you will never tend to look after the ways of life ; if you are loath to part with sin now, you will never part with it. The laws of Christianity are always the same. God will not bate you anything of repentance, and your heart is not like to be better, but worse, that is the sum of it ; and therefore this reason signifies nothing when it comes to be tried in the balance of the sanctuary, and yet this is the main reason.
2. They can plead other things ; hope Grod will be merciful to them hereafter ; though they indulge themselves a little longer in sin, he will at length save them. I answer — You cannot bend his mercy and make it save ; it is a mere uncertainty, peradventure he will, peradventure not. Would you take poison, out of hope that afterward you may meet with an antidote ? And this is the very case between God and us. I answer further — There are shrewd suspicions that God will not be merciful to those that run such a desperate adventure ; for whoever delays his repentance doth in effect pawn his soul with the devil, and leaves it in his hands, and says, Here, Satan, keep my soul ; if I fetch it not again by such a day, it is thine for ever : and can you think mercy will bring it out ? Again, there are great causes of fear, because there is such a thing as judicial hardness of heart, by a sentence of obdura- tion. There are some that God gives up to their own ways and counsels, and God inflicts this sentence upon those that continue in sin, notwithstanding conviction of their hearts to the contrary : Pro v. i. 25, 26, ' Ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof : I will also laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh.' There are thousands in hell merely upon this account, that have forfeited the benefit of God's mercy, and tenders of his grace, and have been shut up by hardness of heart, by God's sentence of obduration; the most dreadful punishment that can light upon a creature on this side hell.
3. Ay ! but we are willing, and would turn to the Lord now, but we have noleisure,and havenot those conveniencies that we shall have here- after, for then we shall get things into a better frame and posture. Oh, no ; it is mere hypocrisy to think you are willing when you delay, for there is nothing hinders but a want of will, and a loathness to comply with the commands of God. When we dare not flatly deny, then we delay. Noti vacat, that is the sinner's plea, I am not at leisure ; but non placet,
YeR. go.] ' SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 143
there is the reality. ]\Iat. xxii. 7, they which were invited to the wed- ding varnished their denial over with an excuse. Delay is a denial, for if they were willing there would be no excuse. To be rid of importunate and troublesome creditors, we promise them payment another time, and we know our estate will be more wasted by that time ; it is but to put them off: so this delay and putting off God is but a shift. Here is the misery, God always comes unseasonably to a carnal heart. It was the devils that said, Mat. viii. 29, 'Art thou come to torment us before our time ? ' Good things are a torment to a carnal heart, and they always come out of time. Certainly that is the best time when the word is pressed upon the heart Avith evidence, light, and power, and when God treats with thee about thine eternal peace.
Reas. 6. There are very urgent reasons to quicken us to make haste.
1. The state wherein we are at present is so bad and dangerous that we can never soon enough come out of it. The state of a man in his carnal condition is compared in scripture to a prison : Eom. xi. 32, 'God hath concluded or shut them all up in unbelief.' And mark, it is a prison that is all on fire. Oh, when poor captives are bolted and shut up in a flaming prison, how will they run hither and thither to get out ! So should we run and strive to get out of this flaming prison. You cannot be too soon out of the power of the devil, or from under the curse of the law, the danger of hell-fire, and the dominion of sin: Mat. iii. 7, ' Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come ? ' He doth not say, to go, nor to run, but to flee. Fleeing from wrath to come, that is the truest motion. And so Heb. vi. 18 ; they which had the avenger of blood at their heels fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set be- fore them. If there be poison in our bowels we think we can never soon enough cast it out. If fire hath taken hold of a building, we do not say we will quench it hereafter, the next week, or next month, but think we can never soon enough quench it. Or if there be a wound in the body, we do not let it alone till it fester and rankle. Christians, you may apply all this to the present case ; here the danger is greater. There is no poison so deadly as sin, which hath infected all mankind : no wound so dangerous, for that will be the death of body and soul : no fire so dreadful as the wrath of God; therefore we cannot soon enough come out of this condition.