2. Not to despise the warnings you receive —
[You have not a hand-writing visibly on the wall : but have you not other warnings, equally legible, on every side ? How many are cut off around you, some old, some young, and some in the prime of life ! How many sudden deaths take place, or, if not sudden in respect of time, yet unexpected by the persons themselves s ! Are the disorders which you see or feel, no warnings ? But you have a hand-writing, yea, the hand-writing of God himself; you may see it in the Scriptures of truth : there you may see written, as with a sun-beam, " Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin:" to you it speaks: your days are numbered, and nearly finished: you are weighed in a balance, and found wanting : and all hope of enjoying the kingdom of heaven will be quickly taken from you, if you do not turn unto God with your whole hearts. God says to you, " My son, give me thine heart:" any thing short of this will be to no purpose. O that you would now " open unto Him that knocketh at the door of your hearts ; " and that " the long-suffering of God might now at last lead you to repentance ! "]
3. Not to delay the great work you have to do —
[Whilst you are living at your ease, and putting the thoughts of death far from you, God may be saying, " Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee." And O, how terrible would this be to the generality ! To some indeed sud- den death would be sudden glory : but to others how different! Herod made a feast ; and, in compliance with his daughter's request, gave her John Baptist's head in a charger : yes, that night was John the Baptist slain. But how different was that night to John the Baptist and Belshazzar! The one went from a prison to a crown ; the other from a palace to a lake of fire. Inquire, I pray you, how death would find you, if it should come this night : and if you are unprepared to meet it, O delay not one hour ; give not sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eye-lids, till you have obtained peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. " Converted you must be ; or you can never
s If this be preached as a New- Year's Discourse, the last year may be represented as dead, or as cut off from our short span of life, which therefore is proportionably contracted.