NOW OR NEVER. 169 mercy, 'vhich once we saw, and wouid not see! 0 that we had those days to spend in penitential tears and prayers; and holy preparations for an endless life, which we spent at cards, in needless recreations, in idle talk, in humouring others, in the pleasing of our flesh, or in the inordinate cares and businesses of the world! 0 that our youthful vigour might return! that our years might be renewed! that the days we spent in vanity might be recalled! that rninisters might again be sent to us publicly and privately, with the message of grace which we once made light of! that the sun would once more shine upon us! and that patience and mercy would once more reassume their work!' If cries or tears, or price or pains, would bring back lost abused time, how happy were the now distracted, dreaming, dead-hearted, and impenitent world ! If it would then serve their turn to say to the vigilant believers, "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out;" or to cry, "Lord, Lord, open to us," when the door is shut; the foolish would be saved as well as the wise. But "this is the day of salvation! this is the accepted time." While it is called to-day, hearken, and harden not your hearts. Awake, thou that sleepest, and use the light that is afford ed thee by Christ; or else the everlasting utter darkness will shortly end thy time and hope. 2. And as time can never be recalled, so life shall ;never be here restored: " If a man die, shall he live (here) again?" All the clays of our appointed time we must therefore wait, in faith and diligence, till our change shall come. One life is appointed us on. earth, to despatch the work on which our everlasting life dependeth: and we shall have but one. Lose that, and all is lost for ever: yet you may hear, and read, and learn, and pray; but when this life is ended, it shall be so no more. You shall rise from the dead indeed to judgment, and to the life that you are now preparing for; but never to such a life as this on earth: your life is as the fighting of a 15
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