:·- 1.10 NOW OR NEVER. battle,. that must be won or lost at once. There is no coming hither again to mend what is done amiss. Oversights must be presently corrected by repentance, or else they are everlastingly past remedy. Now, if you be not truly converted, you may be; if yqu find that you are carnal and miserable, you may be healed; ~f you are unpardoned~ you may be pardoned; if you are enemies, you may be reconciled to God: but when once the thread of life is cut , your opportunities are at an end. Now you may inquire of your friends and teachers what you must do to he saved; and you may receive particular instructions and exhortations, and Gcd may bless them, to the illuminating, renewing, and saving of your souls. But when life is past, it ·will he so 1 no more. 0 then, if departed souls might but return, and once more be tried vvith the tneans oflife~ what joyful tidings would it be! How welcome woula the messenger be that hringeth it! Had hell hut such an offer as this, and would any cries procure it from their righteous Judge, 0 what a change would he among them! How importunately would they cry to God, ' 0 ·send us once again to the earth! Once more let us see the face of mercy, and hear the tenders of Christ and of salvation! Once more let the ministers offer us their helps, and teach in season and out of season, in public and in private, and we will refuse their help and exhortations no more: we will hate them, and drive them away from our houses and towns no more. Once more let us have thy word, and ordinances, and try whether we will not believe them, and use them better than we did. Once more let us have the help a11<l company of thy saints, and we will scorn them, and abuse them, and persecute them no more. 0 for the great invaluable mercy of su:ch a life as once we had! 0 try us once more with such a life, and see whether we will not contemn the world, and close with Christ, and live as strictly, and pray as earnestly, as those that _we hated and abused for so
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=