consciences tell you that it is a thing that must be done. I tell you all these years do seem to me a long time to wait on you in vain. Blessed be the Lord, that it hath not been in vain with some, or else I would scarce preach any more than one other sermon to you, even to bid you farewell. I pray you deal but fairly with us, and tell us whether ever you will turn or not; if you will not, but are resolved for sin and hell, say so, that we may know the worst; speak out your minds,that we may know what to trust to; for if we once knew you would not turn, we would soon have done with you, and leave you to the justice of God. But if still you say, you will turn, when will you do it? You will do it, and you hope you shall; but when? How long would you have us wait yet? Have you not abused us enough? Nay, I must tell you, that you even weary God himself, it is his own expression; Mal. ii. 17. Isa. xliii. 24. wearied me with thine iniquities;" Isa. i. 14. say to you as the prophet, "Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but you will weary my God also;" Isa. vii. 13. Consider what it is that you do.

"Thou hast And I must

46. Consider also, that you are at a constant unspeakable loss every day and hour that you delay your conversion. O how little do you know what you deprive yourselves of every day! If a slave in the gallies, or prison, might live at court as the favourite of the prince, in honour, and delight, and ease, would he delay either years, or hours? Or would he not rather think with himself, 'Is it not better to be at ease, and in honour, than to be here? As the prodigal said, "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" All this while I might be in plenty, and delight.' All the while that you live in sin, you might be in the favour of God, in the high and heavenly employments of the saints; you might have the comforts of daily communion with Christ, and with the saints; you might be laying up for another world, and might look death in the face with faith and confidence, as one that cannot be conquered by it; you might live as the heirs of heaven on earth, All this, and more than this, you lose by your delays. All the mercies of God are lost upon you. Your food and raiment, your health and wealth, which you set so much by, all is but lost, and worse than lost, for they turn to your greater hurt. All our pains with you, and all

the ordinances of God, which you possess, and all your time, is lost, and worse. And do you think it, indeed, a wise man's part, to live any longer at such a loss as this, and that wilfully, and for nothing? If you knew your loss you would not think so.

47. Nay more, you are all this while doing that which must be undone again, or you will be undone for ever. You are running from God, but you must come back again, or perish when all is done. You are learning a hundred carnal lessons and false conceits, that must be all unlearned again; you are shutting up your eyes in wilful ignorance, which must be opened again. You must learn the doctrine of Christ, the great Teacher of the church, if you stay never so long, or else you shall be cut off from his people: Acts iii. 22. vii. 37. When you have been long accustoming yourselves to sin, you must unlearn, and break all those customs again; you are hardening your hearts daily, and they must again be softened. And I must tell you, though a little time and labour may serve to do mischief, yet it is not quickly undone again. You may sooner set your house on fire, than quench it when you have done: you may sooner cut and wound your bodies, than heal them again; and sooner catch a cold, or a disease than cure it. You may quickly do that which must be longer in undoing. Besides, the cure is accompanied with pain: you must take many a bitter draught, in groans or tears of godly sorrow for these delays: the wounds that you are now giving your souls, must smart and smart again, before they are searched and healed to the bottom. And what man of wisdom would make himself such work and sorrow? Who would travel on an hour longer, that knows he is out of the way, and must come back again? Would you not think him a madman that would say, I will go on a little further, and then I will turn back?

I know Mr. Bilney the martyr, was offended with this comparison, because he thought it was against free-grace. But comparisons extend not to every respect: there are two things in your sins to be undone; the one is the guilt, the other is the habit and the power of sin; the first indeed is done away when you are converted, but at the cost of Christ,. which should not be made light of; and yet some scars may be left behind, and such twigs of God's rod may fall upon

you as shall make you wish you had come sooner in. And for the habit of sin, though conversion break the heart of it, yet will it live and trouble you while you live: and those sins that now you are strengthening by your delays, will be thorns in your sides, and rebels in your country, and give you work as long as you live. And thus I may well say, that you are doing that while you delay, that must be long in undoing, and will not be undone so easily as it is done; and you are going on that way, that must be all trod backward.

48. And methinks if it were but this, it should terrify you from your delays, that it is likely to make your conversion more grievous, if you should have so great mercy from God, as after all to be converted. There are very few escape that are so exceeding long in travail; but if you come to the birth, it is like to be with double pain. For God must send either some grievous affliction to fire and frighten you out of your sins, or else some terrible gripes of conscience that shall make you groan and groan again, in the feeling of your folly. The pangs and throes of conscience, in the work of conversion, are far more grievous in some, than in others. Some are even on the rack, and almost brought beside their wits, and the next step to desperation, with horror of soul, and the sense of the wrath of God; so that they lie in doubts and complaints many a year together, and think that they are even forsaken of God. And to delay your conversion, is the way to draw on either this or worse.

49. Consider also, That delays are contrary to the very nature of the work, and the nature of your souls themselves. If indeed, you ever mean to turn, it is a work of haste, and violence, and diligence, that you must needs set upon. "You must strive to enter in, for the gate is strait, and the way is narrow, that leads to life, and few there be that find it. Many shall seek to enter, and shall not be able;" Luke xxxiii. 24, 25. "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us, he shall answer, I know you not whence you are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity;" ver. 27. It is a race that you are to run, and heaven is the prize. "And you know that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize; and therefore you must so run, as that you may win

and obtain;" 1 Cor. ix. 24, 25. And what is more contrary to this than delay? You are soldiers in fight, and your salvation lieth on the victory; and will you trifle in such a case, when death or life is even at hand? You are travellers to another world, and will you stay till the day is almost past before you will begin your journey? Christianity is a work of that infinite consequence, and requireth such speedy and vigorous dispatch, that delay is more unreasonable in this than any thing in the world.

And besides, your souls are spirits of an excellent, active nature, that will not be kept idle: and therefore delay is unsuitable to their excellency. The best and noblest creatures are most active: the basest are most dull, and unfit for action. The earth will stand still: you may easily keep clods and stones from moving; but fire and winds that are purer things, and the sun, and such nobler, sublimer creatures, you are not able to keep idle for an hour. Who can

cause the sun to delay its course? or who can stay the ascending flames? And therefore to your more excellent, immortal souls, and that in a work that must needs be done, how exceeding unsuitable are delays!

50. If all this will not serve turn, let me tell you, That while you are delaying, your judgment doth not delay; and that when it comes, these delays will multiply your misery, and the remembrance of them will be your everlasting torment. Whatever you are thinking of, or whatever you are doing, your dreadful doom is drawing on apace, and misery will overtake you before you are aware. When you are in the alehouse, little thinking of damnation, even then is your damnation coming in haste; when you are drowned in the pleasures, or cares of the world, your judgment is still hastening: you may delay, but it will not delay. It is the saying of the Holy Ghost, (2 Pet. ii. 3.)" Whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." You may slumber, and that so carelessly that we cannot awake you, but your damnation slumbereth not, nor hath done of a long time, while you thought it slumbered; and when it comes it will awaken you. As a man that is in a coach on the road, or a boat on the water, whatever he is speaking, or thinking, or doing, he is still going on, and hastening to his journey's end, or going down the stream: so whatever you think, or speak, or do, whether you believe

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it, or mock at it, whether you sleep or wake, whether you remember it, or forget it, you are hastening to damnation, and you are every day a day nearer to it than before; and it is but a little while till you shall feel it. "Behold, the Judge standeth before the door!" James v. 9. The Holy Ghost hath told you, "The Lord is at hand;" Phil. iv. 5. The day is at hand :—the time is at hand :—the end of all things is at hand;" Rom. xiii. 12. Rev. xxii. 10. 1 Pet. iv. 7. Behold, saith the Lord, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be;" Rev. xxii. 12. And do you, as it were, see the Judge approaching, and damnation hastening on, and yet will you delay ?

And withal consider, that when it comes, it will be most sore to such as you; and then what thoughts do you think you shall have of these delays? You are unable to conceive how it will torment your consciences, when you see that all your hopes are gone, to think what you have brought yourselves to, by your trifling; to feel yourselves in remediless misery, and remember how long the remedy was offered you, and you delayed to use it, till it was too late. To see that you are shut out of heaven, and remember that you might have had it as well as others, but you lost it by delay. O then it will come with horror in your mind,' How oft was I persuaded, and told of this? how oft had I inward motions to return? how oft was I purposed to be holy, and to give up my heart and life unto God? I was even ready to have yielded; but I still delayed, and now it is too late.' Then you shall pay for all your warnings, and all the sermons and motions which you lost.

And now having laid you down no less than fifty moving considerations, if it be possible to save you from these delays, I conclude with this request to you, whoever you be that read these words: That you would but consider of all these reasons, and then entertain them as they deserve. There is not one of them that you are able to gainsay, much less all of them. If after the reading of all these, you can yet believe that you have reason to delay, your understandings are forsaken of God; but if you are forced to confess that you should not delay, what will you do then? Will you obey God, and your own consciences, or will you not? Will you turn this hour without delay? Take heed of de