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fomething else in its Place, are of moft SERM. pernicious Confequence, and will be found fo at the Day of Judgment, when every Man's Behaviour will be brought to the Touchstone, and nothing but a virtuous Life, and a Courfe of fincere Obedience to all the Precepts of the Gofpel will pafs for Sterling,

2dly, The foregoing Difcourfe may ferve to convince Men of the great Danger and Folly of delaying Repentance and a good Life, which are the neceffary Preparatives for their laft Account, to any future Time. I do not speak this with regard to hardened Sinners, who abandon themselves to all Kinds of Wickedness, and have no Senfe of a God, and a Heaven, and a Hell upon their Minds, and who being past feeling Eph. 4. 19. have given themselves over unto Lafciviousness, to work all Uncleanness with Greediness; and whofe Confciences are feared with a hot Iron,

as St. Paul happily expreffes it; for of fuch, Tim. 4.2. there is little Hope: But I fpeak of those who have fome Senfe of religious Things upon their Minds, fome Confcience of Good and Evil, and who know that they muft repent and reform one Time or other, and intend to do it, but for a thousand im

pertinent

SER M. pertinent Reafons put it off to fome undeXIV. termined Period of their Lives, or if they

fix upon any Period, it is commonly that of old Age or of Sickness.

If fuch Men would but candidly examine their own Hearts, it would appear that they are only flattering and deceiving themselves with a Notion of their being refolved, when in Truth they are not; for they will find by their own Experience, that in all other Matters of great Importance, tho' not in any Respect equal to this, they are careful not to lose the first Opportunity of carrying their Purposes into Execution. From whence it is evident, either that they do not think Repentance and a good Life of great Importance, or that they are not truly refolved to put them in Execution when they may fancy they are.

Let me therefore picture to thefe SelfDeceivers, the great Danger of their Cafe.

In the 1 Place, they cannot but know that they have no certain Tenure of their Lives. For they fee by frequent Obfervation, that neither Youth, nor Health, nor even Temperance, tho' it be the best of all Securities, nor Medicine, nor the utmost

Pre

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Precaution against Casualties and Perils, SR M. can insure Life. If they confult the Parish Registers, and look into the Church Yards, they will fee Records and Monuments of Death promifcuous to all Stages of human Life. If they furvey the Living, they will see the healthy and the strong carried off in a few Days by the Fever, or the SmallPox, and fometimes in a few Minutes by the Apoplexy, or fome unforeseen Casualty; whence comes it then, that the only Matter of Importance they choose to Rifque, is that of their eternal Salvation, fince they know not what a Day may bring forth?

2dly, They truft to another Thing as deceitful as Life, and that is their own Hearts, which as the Prophet Jeremiah hath affured us, are deceitful above all Things, and defperately wicked; and this is what their own Experience may fuggeft. For whence comes it to pass that Men adjourn from one Time to another, a Work which they know to be fo abfolutely neceffary, and yet so hazardous to leave undone even for a Day? this can proceed only from a certain Indolence and Difinclination, which fuggests many frivolous Excufes for putting it off to the next Week, or the next Month, or the

next

SER M. next Year; and when the Time prefixed is XIV. come, it always comes too foon to a back

ward Mind, and the fame Excufes come along with it, and to-morrow is as this Day, and much more abundantly. Every Man who looks into his own Conduct in this Matter, cannot but be fenfible how egregiously he is betrayed and deceived by his own Heart, and that it must be the highest Prov. 28. 6. Folly to truft it any longer. He that trusteth in his own Heart is a Fool, fays Solomon, but whofo walketh wifely he shall be delivered. Most certain it is, that the Repetition of evil Acts beget evil Habits; and that these Habits, like Weeds, take deeper Root, and grow more strong and ftubborn with Time. What is it then that fuch Men are doing? They are making that Work more hard and difficult, which they agree must be done at laft; they are daily increasing their Tafk, and at the fame Time wafting their Strength; they are doing what they know they muft undo with Sorrow and Pain one Time or another, and would any Man in his right Senfes do this?

I am afraid that when thefe great Duties are thus adjourned from time to time, it rarely happens that they are ever done at all.

But

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But if a Man fhould in good earnest set SER M. about them in old Age, which one fourth Part of the World never live to fee, yet how unfit a Time does he choofe? how will he perform the most important Actions, when he begins to doat, and is unqualified for the common Bufinefs of Life? and what Thanks is it to him that he repents, when he cannot well fin any longer? The Strength and Flower of his Age have been devoted to his Lufts and Pleafures, and when he is run to the Dregs, he is fo generous as to give thofe to God and to his Soul. I will not say that God will refuse them, for who fhall limit his Mercy? but there can be no Affurance that they will be accepted, and he may expect that Rebuke mentioned by the Prophet, Ye brought that which was Mal. 1. 15. torn, and the Lame, and the Sick, thus ye brought an Offering; fhall I accept this of your Hands, faith the Lord?

But of all Refuges the Weakest and most dangerous is a Death-bed Repentance, which I will fhew you from the following Confiderations.

ft, No Man is fure that he fhall have even the short Warning of a Death-bed.

How