xxiv not let you ofl' with any other repentance than re-- pentance now; and if th!s be refused now, we cannot, with our eyes open to the consideration we have now utged, that the instrument we make to bear upon you afterwards is not more powerful than we are wielding now, coupled with another consideration which we shall insist upon, that tfte subject on which the instrument worketh, even the heart ofman, gathers, by every act ef resistance, a more uncomplying obstinacy than before; we cannot, with these two thoughts in our mind, look :fiwward to your future histoty, without seeing spread. over the whole path of it the iron of a harder impenitency-the sullen gloom of a deeper and more determined alienation. 4. Another argument, therefore, for immediate repentance is, that the mind which resists a present call or a present reproof~ undergoes a progressive hardening towards all those considerations which arm the call of repentance with all its energy. It is not enough to say, that the instrument by which repentance is brought about, is not more powerful to-morrow than it is to day; it lends a most tremendous weight to the argument, to say further, that the subject on which this instrument is putting forth its efficiency, will oppose a firmer resistance to-morrow than it does to-day. It is this which gives a significancy so powerful to the call of "To-day while it is to-day, harden not your hearts;" and to the admonition of " Knowest thou not, 0 man, that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance; but after, thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up wrath against the day of wrath and reveiation of the righteous judgments of God? " It is not said, either in the one or in the other of these passages, that, by the present refusal, you cut yourself off from a future invitation. The invitation may be sounded in your hearing to the last half hour of your earthly existence, engraved in all those characters of free and gratuitous kindness which mark the beneficent religion of the New Testament.
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