cannot help himself to a single mouthful-when he must have attendants to sit around him, and watch his every wish, and interpret his every signal, and turn him to every posture where he may find a moments ease, and wipe away the cold sweat that is running over him-and ply him with cordials for thirst, and sickness, and insufferable languor. And this is the time, when occupied with such feelings, and beset with such agonies as these, you propose to crowd within the compass of a few wretched days, the work of winding up the concerns of a neglected eternity! 5. But it may be said, if repentance be what you represent it, a thing of such mighty import, and such impracticable performance, as a change of mind, in what rational way can it be made the subject of a precept or an injunction? you would not call upon the Ethiopian to change his skin-you would not call upon the leopard to change his spots; and yet you call upon us to change our minds. You say, 66 Repent;" and that too in the face of the undeniable doctrine, that man is without strength for the achievement of so mighty an enterprise. Can you tell us any plain and practicable thing that you would have us to perform, and that we may perform to help on this business? This is the very question with which the hearers of John the Baptist came back upon him, after he had told them in general terms to repent, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. He may not have resolved the difficulty, but he pointed the expectations of his countrymen to a greater than he for the solution of it. Now that Teacher has already come, and we live under the full and the finished splendour of his revelation. O that the greatness and difficulty of the work of repentance, had the effect of shutting you up into the faith of Christ! Repentance is not a paltry, superficial reformation. It reaches deep into the inner man, but not too deep for the searching influences of that Spirit which is at his giving, and which worketh mightily in the hearts of believers. You should go then under a sense of your difficulty to Him. Seek to be rooted in the Saviour, that you may be nourished out of his fulness, and strengthened by his might. The simple cry for a clean heart, and a right spirit, which is raised from the mouth of a believer, brings down an answer from on high, which explains all the difficulty and overcomes it. And if what we have said of the extent and magnitude of repentance, should have the effect to give a deeper feeling than before of the wants under which you labour; and shall dispose you to seek after a closer and more habitual union with Him who alone can supply them, then will our call to repent have indeed fulfilled upon you the appointed end of a preparation for the Saviour. But recollect now is your time, and now is your opportunity, for entering on the road of preparation that leads to heaven. We charge you to enter this road at this moment, as you value your deliverance from hell, and your possession of that blissful place where you shall be for ever with the Lord-we charge you not to parry and to delay this matter, no not for a single hour-we call on you by all that is great in eternity-by all that is terrifying in its horrors--by all that is alluring in its rewards-by all that is binding in the authority of God-by all that is condemning in the severity of his violated law, and by all that can aggravate this condemnation in the insulting contempt of his rejected gospel;—we call on you by one and all of these considerations, not to hesitate but to flee-not to purpose a return for to-morrow, but to make an actual return this very day-to put a decisive end to every plan of wickedness on which you may have entered-to cease your hands from all that is forbidden-to turn them to all that is required to betake yourselves to the appointed Mediator, and receive through him, by the prayer of faith, such constant supplies of the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, that, from this moment, you may be carried forward from one degree of grace unto another, and from a life devoted to God here, to the elevation of a triumphant, and the joys of a blissful eternity hereafter. St. Andrew's, October, 1825. T. C. DOCT. 1. It is the unchangeable law of God, that wicked men must turn or die-Proved, 73 God will not be so unmerciful as to damn us— -Answered, 74 The Use, 79 Who are wicked men, and what conversion is; and how we may know whether we are wicked, or converted, 81 DOCT. 2. It is the promise of God, that the wicked shall live, DOCT. 4. The Lord hath confirmed it to us by his oath, that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn and live; that he may leave man no pretence to doubt of it, 102 109 119 USE. Who is it then that takes pleasure in men's sin and 120 127 Some motives to obey God's call, and turn. DOCT. 6. The Lord condescendeth to reason the case with unconverted sinners, and to ask them, Why they will die? 143 A strange disputation 1. For the question. 2. The dispu tants. Wicked men will die or destroy themselves. USE. The sinner's case is certainly unreasonable, Their seeming reasons confuted, USE. Why are men so unreasonable, and loath to turn, and Answered, will destroy themselves? DOCT. 7. If, after all this, men will not turn, it is not the fault of God that they are condemned, but of themselves; even their own wilfulness. They die, because they will die: Page 148 152 166 that is, because they will not turn, 170 USE, 1. How unfit the wicked are to charge God with their 178 183 USE, 2. The subtlety of Satan, the deceitfulness of sin, and the folly of sinners manifested, 184 USE, 3. No wonder if the wicked would hinder the conversion and salvation of others, USE, 4. Man is the greatest enemy to himself, Ten Directions for those that had rather turn than die, ib. NOW OR NEVER; 211 FIFTY REASONS, 351 |