3. You hope for some more convenient season for
returning to your God —
[You have a general persuasion that you must experience a change before you go hence ; but you wish to put it off to some future period. You are too young at present, or have too many engagements ; and you think a time of sickness will be more favourable to reflection ; and, as God has shewn mercy to many in their last hours, you hope he may to you. This completes what the other errors have begun. This lulls you asleep in fatal security. If ignorance slays its thousands, this procrastinating habit slays its ten thousands.]
Having shewn you the true reasons why your health is not recovered, I would impress the subject yet further on your minds, by asking two questions :
1. Would not the recovery of your souls tend to your present happiness ?
[Grant that the votary of pleasure obtains all that he seeks after ; is not he who has his sins forgiven, his corruptions mor- tified, his soul transformed into the Divine image, the sting of death removed, and a glorious inheritance secured to him, the
happier man ? We will abide the decision of your own
consciences.]
2. Will not the consequence of dying in your pre- sent diseased state be terrible ?
[Terrible it will be to all ; but most of all to those who have their diseases faithfully pointed out to them, and the hea- venly Physician brought before them. O how pungent will that question be to them in the day of judgment, " Why were not ye recovered, ye, who had the balm of Gilead freely offered you, and who withstood the most pressing solicitations to accept of mercy ? " O that ye may be wise in time ! and that, instead of having then to regret the opportunities you have lost, you may now be enabled to say with the Psalmist, " Bless the Lord, O my soul ; who forgive th all thy sins, and healeth all thy diseases!"]