VOL. ix. 13
194 THE SIN AND JUDGMENT OF
a space to repent in, Rev. ii. 21. This space and season, as I have showed you before, is not ofttimes all the while that the gospel is preached unto you. The word may be preached, and yet its efficacy wholly restrained from you, and that because your time and season is gone. And so it comes to pass daily; and you know not how soon it may be your lot and portion, and you perceive it not. Therefore is the apostle so earnest in exhorting men to make use of their day, before their season be gone, Heb. hi. 12, 13, " Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day ; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." As if he should say, " Take heed to yourselves ; stir up your- selves : for if your day be once passed over, you are then gone for ever; it will then be too late for you to look out after mercy." And so agaiD, 2 Cor. vi. 2, "Now is the day, now is the time." If you stand in need of any commodity that can be had but at one fair, — that day, that season you will not neglect. You stand in need, I am sure, of grace, mercy, pardon, Christ, life, — salvation ; there is only this day, this season, for you to obtain it in. 0 that you would be per- suaded to look out after it before it be hidden from you! See Heb. x. 31, " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." So the same apostle again, Heb. xii. 15, "Looking dili- gently lest any man fail of the grace of God." Use all diligence in this matter.
To excite you a little to this, consider, —
(1.) That if you are not healed during your season, you can never be healed. If the gospel cure you not, you must die in your sins. Men are greatly mistaken, when they flatter themselves that it can never be too late for them in this world, — there is time enough whilst they are alive. Alas ! you have but your season ; and that may be over with you many days before you leave the world, yea, many years. "We have everywhere ground evidently " left to salt," though yet not burned up. Use your day.
(2.) You know not how your day is going away, nor when it will be over. The traveller on the road, that hath a journey to go, knows how to order his affairs. u It is," saith he, " so many hours to night, and I have time enough before me ;"— so doth the labouring man also : but, alas ! it is not so with you ; you know not how soon your day may be over. I speak not of your lives, which, the Lord knows, are uncer- tain; but the day of the gospel may be over whilst the day of your lives continue. Nor can you be certain of the day of the preaching of the word ; but your day, and your season in it, may come to an end this day, or this night, for aught that you or I know: so that your concernment is unspeakably great in the proposal that is made
SPIRITUAL BARRENNESS. 195
unto you. Remember the virgins that were shut out, and their cry at midnight!
You will say, then, " What shall we do to know when it is our season, that we may apply our hearts unto this exhortation?"
I answer, The Lord alone, who is the searcher of all hearts, knows how it is with you, and whether you have not any of you in particu- lar outstood your opportunity. I can only tell you what is a gospel season ; which you are to take care that you may have a share and interest in: —
[1.] It is required that the gospel be preached in the power and purity of it. This in general makes " the acceptable day, the time of salvation." And if there be nothing else concurring: this is enough to let a people or person know that the day of the Lord is come upon them, — that the waters of the sanctuary are come unto them. Now, consider with yourselves, whether the gospel be preached unto you or not, or whether you may not or might not have it so preached unto you, or enjoy the dispensation of it, did you but discharge your duty. If it be so, this is one evidence that it is yet your day.
[2.] It is a special season when providential calls do join in with and further gospel calls ; — when God causes the gospel to be dispensed unto a people, and at the same time puts forth some acts of his pro- vidence, that are suited to awaken men to the consideration of their state and condition, then is the season of that people. I shall not go over the several providential calls that have been upon us to in- quire after the ways of God. Are all the alterations that have been amongst us, discovering the great uncertainty of all things that are here below, no call? Was there no call in the great unseasonable- ness of the year? — no call in the danger of the loss of the gospel, which seems to stand ready for its flight from you? — the great un- certainty how long you may enjoy these waters of the sanctuary? It is certain, that if you have not neglected already your season, your day of grace, you are now under the time that you are to be tried in.