what Patent haft thou from Heaven, that it shall not be thus with thee? God laughs at that repentance, which men begin, when they can keep fin and the world no longer; he fees it is forc'd, and squeez'd, and weak, and feeble; and will God accept of thy Devotion, when thou haft exhausted the cream and marrow of thy bones in the Devil's fervice? How, finner? conder thy ways upon thy Death-bed ? Mad man! Doft thou know what Confideration means? the Soul must be in its full strength, that confiders the finfulness and fad confequences of her life. Doft not thou fee how in fickness the Soul fympathizes with the Body? how the Mind languishes with the Flesh? how weak, how feeble the thoughts are upon a Deathbed? how the mind is employed with thinking of the pain, and anguish, and uneafinefs of the Body? how mens weakness fcarce gives them leave to repeat the Lord's Prayer intire, without interruption how fetling their Eftates, and difpofing of their worldly affairs, and forrow, and vexation, that they have not managed their fecular concerns with greater prudence, takes up their cogitations and how tranfitory and fuperficial mens thoughts of fin, and of another World are except they have gotten a habit of Heavenly-mindednefs by a long and conftant practice of Holiness, in the time of their health and liberty before? And doth Salvation deferve no more, but a few fleight and skin deep reflexions,

a

C

it reflexions, when thou lieft a dying? Canft thou have fuch low thoughts of everlasting Glory, as to let Confideration of it come be hind all the fatisfactions of thy flesh? Canst thou entertain such pitiful sneaking conceits concerning that mighty Heaven, God, out of his fingular and unparallel'd mercy, hath condefcended to promife to his Saints, as to delay thy contemplations, and thy taking a view of it, till thy heart-strings break and thy throat begins to rattle, and the House is falling? Go ye curfed into everlasting fire, prepa red for the Devil and his Angels. Alas! when men are a dying, the time of working is past, that's the night wherein no man can work; that's the time indeed to reap comfort of our former confcientious practices, but not the time to work out our Salvation in; that's the time of rejoycing, because our redemption draws nigh, not the time of fetting out from the gates of Hell; that's the time to fi nish our course with joy, not the time to begin a holy life. Alas! the strength and vigour which must be used in a Heavenly converfation, is then gone, and men are just upon the point of reckoning with God; their Accounts muft then be ready, not to make up: fo that if thou art not ready now to take thy Spiritual concerns into ferious confideration, thy heart will be hardned every day more and more, and the longer thou liveft, the less mind thou wilt have to fet about it; and if thou doft not think

it

it worth thy trouble to fpare now and then an hour from thy worldly businesses to mind this one thing neceffary, thou doft as good as tell God, that thou wilt have none of his Heaven, and judgest thy felf unworthy of eternal life.

O finner, the present time is the day of Sal vation, this is the acceptable time, now ftrike, and thy fins will fall now ftrive, and the Crown will be thine; now fall to work, and promise, thy felf eternal rest: thou canst call no time thine own but the prefent, that's only in thine hands; make use of that, and fave thy felf from this untoward generation. Extricate thy felf from the delufions of the flesh, take courage, and be gone; ftay not in So dom, now accept of Mercy, now lay up thy Treasure, and secure thy right to the Tree of Life; now remember thy Creator, and God will remember thee when he makes up his Jewels, and fpare thee, as a man would spare his own Son that ferves him. . da

A

Hear then this, Men, Fathers, and Brethren, the God of your Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath fent us to you, to tell you, that his Supper is ready, and the doors are open, and the Guests are come, and yet there is room, and that you may fill the room which is left, is the meffage we come to acquaint you withal from him, who delights not in the death of a finner, but would

have him turn and live. Hear this, ye great Ones, ye Nobles, ye mighty Men, and confider your ways: confider whether that voluptuous. life you lead, is like that life which that Saviour, in whom you pretend to believe, doth prefcribe in his Gospel? Confider whether you art not obliged to practise all thofe Virtues and Duties that the meaner fort perform? and whether in framing to your felves a new way to Heaven, a way different from what the Word of God doth represent, you are like to be happy in those Castles of Air you build, and like to arrive to that Glory which you wish for, and hope to be received into? Confider what your pride and fenfuality will at last conclude in? and whether you will dare to brave it at the great Tribunal, as now you do on Earth, where you have no body to controul you? Ye that are Magiftrates, whom Providence hath placed over others to execute Juftice, and to Thew a good example, Confider your ways. Confider how heavy your connivance at the most notorious fins fins that offer to pluck even God out of his Throne, will lie upon your Confciences one day! Confider what hurt you do, how many Souls you ruine by your de bauch'd, and luxurious lives! Confider whether you can fatisfie God as eafily as you can do Man, and whether that injuftice, that oppreffion, that covetousness, that lewdness you make nothing of now, are not fins weighty enough to bear you down into the burning Lake? Ye Learn

ed

ed Men, whether Ministers or others, who fee and know more than the Vulgar do, Confider your ways. Confider whether that great knowledge you have will not procure you double ftripes, if you improve it not into a higher de gree of seriousness, than common people use; Confider what a ridiculous thing you make Re ligion, if being perfwaded and convinced of the rationality of it, you do not exprefs the power of it in your converfations. Confider whether building Heaven with your Voices, and Hell with your behaviour and deportment, will not bring down upon you the feverest Plagues that are written in the Book of God! Ye that are Hearers of the Word, and frequent the Temple of the Lord, to be taught his Statutes and his Ordinances, Consider your ways. Confider whether fo many entreatings,warnings,reproofs, and admonitions, in feafon and out of season, which you take no notice of, will not be brought in one day, as evidences to justifie your everlasting condemnation? Confider how God is like to refent your barrenness and unfruitfulness under the richest means of Grace, under the droppings of his fatnefs! Confider how justly God may punish your not digesting and applying his Commands and Precepts to your felves, with hardness and blindness of heart, and whether this Judgment be not more frequent than the World is aware of, and whether you do not participate of that Judgment? Hear this, all ye that carry Rational, Angelical Souls in your

breafts,