ment. man, the creature of a day, ever subject to the changeful events of Providence, momently exposed to snares and temptations, the dupe of custom, and the slave of habit, has no authority, no power, beyond the present moTen thousand things combine to lead him astray. Ten thousand occurences conspire to confirm him in illegal and sinful practices. And when once, by a ruinous negligence, we suffer our better powers to be cramped by habit; when moral corruption shall have infused its influence into all the exercises of our faculties; when wakeful conscience shall become torpid by abuse; when our moral perceptions become insensible to the nice impressions and distinctions of truth; when the heart is so shielded, that the arrows of conviction can no longer pierce it; then shall the measure of our iniquity be filled, and we shall have put the seal to our own condemnation. To be thus given over to a reprobate mind-to be thus made vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction-would surely preclude, in view of all human probability, the possibility of repentance. Yet this is the situation, my impenitent hearers, to which your delay is rapidly conducting you. You treat with disrespect the mercies of God; you despise the munificence of his Grace; you trample upon the blood of the everlasting covenant; and you defy-you practically defy, the awful sanctions of the eternal world. The longer you delay, the more firmly does habit secure you in bondage. The longer you delay, the more numerous and aggravated are your sins. The longer you delay, the nearer does that night of moral insensibility approach, whose awful shades will exclude every ray of light, and whose fatal influence will fill the soul with perpetual gloom. But this is not all. The influence of habit is not the only bar to the possibility of repentance. Disease may seize your frame, and paralize all the energies of your nature. That mind, which is now so active-that imagination, so fruitful in invention, may become unhinged by some unforeseen occurrence, and be rendered incapable of noble and rational exertion. Some dire misfortune, to which you are ever exposed in this life, may, as a just judgment of Heaven, fall upon you with all its terrors, and forever deprive you, physically, as well as morally, of the possibility of repentance. And death itself will, at length, steal upon you, at a time perhaps when it will be least expected, and, in one moment, will bring to a close your probationary existence. Are not these reflections sufficient to induce the impenitent soul to tremble before God? Are they not sufficient to call forth tears of contrition from every one whose heart has never yet exercised the grace of repentance? If, then, this delay, in which so many indulge, may, in the end, prove so fatal-if it ever tends to render the practice of this duty more difficult, surely the present is the time which wisdom would point out as the most proper season to repent. If the delay of this duty may preclude the possibility of its fulfilment, surely this is the accepted time—this the day of salvation, in which the powers of every impenitent soul should be vigorously exerted, lest the night should come, when no man can work. What more shall I say to induce you to repent; to induce you to do that which you know to be your duty; to induce you now to execute what you propose hereafter to do? Alas! what has not been done, that you might be enabled to do this? What has not been done, in order to secure your final salvation? With what love has God regarded you! What compassion and forbearance has he ever exercised towards you! Why is it that you have not yet been cut off in your sins? Why is it that the sword of justice is yet sheathed? That you are not now trembling before the bar of God? Have you not disregarded his commands? And are you not afraid to live a moment longer in impenitence? Have you not heard the invitations of the Gospel? Has not Jesus died? Has not a fountain been opened for sin and uncleanness? And do you still remain impenitent? Still refuse to be embraced by the arms of mercy? Still refuse to be acknowledged heirs of salvation? What more can be done to induce you to repent? Were I able to summon an Angel from Heaven, could he prevail? If a sense of the danger to which you are exposed; if a prospect of that happiness which is graciously offered to you; if the labors and the sufferings of the Son of God; if the blessed invitations of his Gospel-if all these cannot prevail, nothing will. If you believe not Moses and the Prophets; if you disregard Christ and his Apostles; though one were to rise from the dead; though an Angel were to descend from Heaven; you still would refuse-still determine to go on in transgression. 46 But let not all be in vain. in vain for you that the Grace been revealed from Heaven. merciful-still long-suffering. 66 Let it not be of God has God is still Grace has not yet passed away; His merciful visitations are not yet withheld; He is still waiting to be gracious; still proclaiming this to be the accepted time-this the day of salvation. Let, then, the present be the decisive period, in which you will solemnly covenant, with your own hearts, to dedicate yourselves in future to God. Learn, henceforth, to avoid iniquity, and to cultivate righteousness, remembering that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Be, therefore, watchful over your own hearts, ever striving to cultivate holiness in the fear of God. For "what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? "Forsake, therefore, the error of your ways, and be ye separate from the ways of transgression, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” |