BAXTER'S FIFTY REASONS. 547 What likelihood is there that ever so foolish a sinner should be recovered and saved from his sin?, 7. Moreover, your delaying is a vile abuse of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and may so far provoke him, as to leave you to yourself, and then you are past help. If you delight, so to trample on your crucified Lord, and will so long put him to it by refusing his grace, and grieving his Spirit : what can you expect but that he should turn away in wrath, and utterly forsake you, and say, Let him keep his sin, seeing he had rather have it than my grace; let him continue un- godly, seeing he is so loath to be sanctified; let him take his own course, and die in his sin, and repent in hell, seeing he would not repent on earth ? You provoke Christ thus to give you up. 8. Consider also, I beseech you, if you ever mean to turn, what it is that you stay for. Do you think to bring down Christ and heaven to your own terms, and to be saved hereafter with less ado? Sure you cannot be so foolish : for God will'be still the same; and. Christ the same; and his promise bath still the same condition, which he will never change ; and godliness will be the same, and as much against your carnal interest hereafter as it is now. WThen you have looked about you ever so long, you will never - find a fairer or nearer way ; but this same way you must go or perish. If you cannot leave sin now, how should you leave it then ? It will still be as sweet to your flesh as now : or if one sin grow stale by the de- cay of nature, another that is worse will spring up in its stead, and though the acts abate, they will all live still at root ; for sin was never mortified by age. So that if ever you will turn, you may best turn now. 9. Yea, more than that, the longer you stay the harder it will be. If it_ be hard to day, it is like to be harder to-morrow. For as the Spirit of .Christ is like to forsake you for your wilful delays, so custom will strengthen sin : and. custom in sinning will harden your hearts, and make you past feeling, to work all . uncleanness with greediness, Eph. iv. 19. Cannot
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