no time for it. Perhaps it did not come in your head to make ready for the other world, having been fo fhort while in this. But whofe fault is that? However, fhould you put it off but till to-morrow, ye do it at your peril without God's allowance.

2. One hour's delay may be an eternal lofs, yea one minute's for this hour, this minute, you may be removed into the other world. And where then is the next hour, or minute, which you put it off to? Why will men thus let flip the time they have, and truft to a time they have not, and perhaps never fhall have? What a venture is it to venture on eternity upon an uncertainty? Should one caft away in a water, put off till the next minute his taking hold of the rope; we would reckon him a self-destroyer, because ere the next minute he may be in the bottom.

3. Tho' ye get the time ye put off unto, how are ye fure of grace to help you to improve it? Tho' the ship be not gone off, the wind may be fallen, and the tide gone; that is an awful word, that may justly strike with trembling, Luke xiv. 24. "I fay unto you that none of those men which were bidden, shall taste of my fupper." Indeed delayers to make ready feem to imagine, that it is in their own hand to put themselves in readinefs, when they think good: but, alas! they deceive themselves, 2 Cor. iii. 5. Common experience fhews, that when fuch a time comes, men are as ready for a new delay as ever.

4. The longer ye delay, ye make the work of making ready the more hard, Jer. xiii. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his fkin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye alfo do good, that are accustomed to do evil.' It is like the mending of a dam: take it in time, it will be the eafier; but to put it off, the breach grows wider, and will cost far more labour. Alas! it often fares with our fouls in this cafe as with bodily diseases, which if taken timely might be carried off; but at length they grow fo inveterate, being neglected, that they fpurn all remedy.

Laftly,

Laftly, So far as ye delay, ye are unfaithful and cruel to your own fouls, leaving them for the time in hazard of perishing. If ye had a child fallen into the fire or the water, would you delay to pull him out? Thy foul is fallen into a gulf of fin and mifery under the curfe, and is every moment in hazard, of falling down to the bottom; why do ye put off? why do ye not prefently fet yourselves to make ready?

Here I am aware of feveral objections, which I must anfwer.

Object. 1. I am but young yet; what needs fo foon making ready for the other world?

Anfw. 1. And may ye not die young? Are there not in the church yard, fuch as have died in childhood? are there not boys and girls in their graves there, young men and maids, men and women in their prime? I fufpect, that, on a juft calculation, there would be found far more fuch than those of gray hairs.

lay not to make ready though young.

Therefore de

2. To whom should your youth and strength be devoted, to God your Maker, or the vain world? Whatever extravagant notions obtain among the young with refpect to this, I defy them to get a footing for them, but in their vain imaginations, not to be fupported but by overlooking God and their Bibles, which lay them under a neceffity of folid ferioufnefs, ftrict walking, and making ready, as well as others. Are they excepted in the divine precepts, and calls to these things; or in the threatenings, in cafe of neglect? No; Pfal. cxlviii. 12, 13. "Both young men and maidens, old men and children, Let them praife the name of the Lord; for his name alone is excellent, his glory is above the earth and heaven." i. e. Let them praise and serve ferve him with the vigour of youth, and not spend it on the vain world; it is God's gift, let them not facri legiously rob him of the use of it, but seriously confider that caution, Eccl. xi. 9, 10. " Rejoice, O young man in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of

thy

thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the fight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all thefe things God fhall bring thee into Judgement. There fore remove forrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh; for childhood and youth are vanity."

3. It is a real thing to find fuch as are bred up under the gospel, and spend their youth without making ready, to get grace to make ready after, Job xx. 11. "His bones are full of the fin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the duft." It is an ordinary thing in a vain world, for the young to think with great reafon to stave off the seriousness of religion, till once they be married at leaft. But it is a just and awful observe, that they who living under the gospel vainly and carelefsly before, are rarely converted after they are married, but are a ftep farther back from Chrift. It is founded on Luke xiv. 20. " Another faid, I have married a wife; and therefore I cannot come." And to confirm it do but obferve how many there are who in their youth and fingle life gave hopeful figns, wither away whene once dipt in the cares of a family. But in cafe that grace do reach you after that time, ye will readily find it a faving fo as by fire, being broken and bruifed in your entry to it, at another rate than you might have been before.

Lastly, After all it is a base and difingenuous thing, to put off the answering of the gofpel call and ferious religion, till once ye are past your beft. How think ye God will take that off your hand? Mal. i. 8. You will referve the dregs of your time for God, and give the flower and cream of your days to the vain world. I befeech you imagine yourselves in these circumftances applying to God, and beginning to make ready; and let conscience guess what is likely to be your anfwer and fuccefs.

Object. 2. My hands are now fo full of bufinefs that I cannot get opportunity to make ready; but if I were at the end of such and such a bufinefs, and freed from fuch entangling circumstances as I am now in I would fet myself to make ready.

Anf.

Anf. 1. Is not your business for the other world your main bufinefs? Tho' your other business should go never fo well, if that be marred ye are ruined, fo as nothing will make up your lofs, Mat. xvi. 26. If that were once right, let your affairs in the world be never fo unfuccefsful, it cannot make you unhappy.. How then can ye reasonably put it off longer?

2. Take heed that the business that mars you to-day from your great work, be not fucceeded to-morrow with a bufinefs that will mar you more. It is ordi nary, that he who puts off his great work, to a fitter time than the prefent, when the time comes he fet, it is found lefs fit than the former. The cafe of Felix may be a warning here, Acts xxiv. 25.

Laftly, That is at beft a great and hazardous venture. Death comes in on men in the midst of business without ceremony, however loth they may be to break it off to prepare for death, Pf.cxlvi. 4. "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Luke xii. 20. Wherefore let no circumstances, however perplexed and entangled, move you to delay, Object. ult. It is time enough to make ready when - one comes to a death-bed.

Anf. 1. That is a manifeft contempt of God, and of the other world. What? Is the matter of the other world fuch a trifling thing, as to delay making ready for it, till ye be able no more to pursue the things of this life? Is it fo fmall a matter in your eyes, to obtain the favour of God, and a reception into his family above? You will certainly change thefe thoughts.

2. Ye may poffibly get no death-bed, but may in an inftant drop out of this, into the other world. Death fends not always meffengers before, to warn of its approach; many a man in health has by fome providential incident been fuddenly difpatched into the other world. And delayers have ground to fear it will be their lot in a special manner, as ye may fee, Mat. xxiv. 48,-51.

3. Though ye get a death-bed, ye may be rendered incapable of making ready, by the nature of your difeafe.

Though

Though ye be capable, you may get enough ado evento die, through a vehement tofs of ficknefs. If there was one thief on the cross that got repentance, there was another that died hardened; and this is most likely to be your cafe who fo delay.

Laftly, Death-bed repentance is feldom fincere. What is recorded of the Ifraelites in the wilderness, may well have weight here, Pf. lxxviii. 34,-36. "When he flew them, then they fought him; and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their Redeemer. Nevertheless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues." The terrors of death may make a mighty concern about the other world in a graceless heart; but what fincerity there is for the most part in these things, may be learned from the cafe of fuch brought to the gates of death, who after all túrn juft back to their old bias.

THIRDLY and LASTLY, The laft thing upon thi sufe of exhortation is, Having made ready, keep ready. Your intereft as well as duty is concerned in this. Therefore take the following directions.

1. Keep grace in exercife, Luke xii. 35. "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning." Slumbering virgins, though wife, are not ready to meet the Bridegroom. Let faith be awake, love kept warm, defires aftir, &c. And labour to be fpiritual in all religious performances.

2. Beware of dipping deep again in this once forfaken world; of being drowned in its pleasures, racked with its cares, glued to its profits, lifted up with its fmiles, or funk with its frowns, 1 Cor. vii. 29,―31. "This I fay, brethren, the time is fhort. It remaineth, that both they that have wives, be as tho' they had none; and they that weep, as tho' they wept not," c.

3.

Be careful to keep a clean confcience, as Paul, A&s xxiv. 16. "Herein," fays he, " do I exercise myself to have always a confcience void of offence toward God and toward men." Have you got on your wedding garment?

keep