fore the feafon of working begins: It is a great while before the use of our reafon begins, and we come to have our fenfes exercised to difcern between good and evil; before our understandings are ripe for the ferious confideration of God and religion, and for the due care of our fouls, and of the eternal concernment of another world, fo that this first part of our life is in a great measure useless and unprofitable to us, in regard to our great defign. For infancy and childhood are but the dawnings of this day, and no fit time to work in; and youth, which is as the morning of this day, though it is the flower of our time, and the most proper season of all other, for the remembrance of God, and the impreffions of religion, yet it is ufually poffeft by vanity and vice: The common cuftom and practice of the world, hath devoted this best part of our age to the worst employments, to the fervice of fin and of our lufts. How very few are there that lay hold of this opportunity, and employ it to the beft purposes? And yet the following courfe of our lives doth in a great meafure depend upon it for moft perfons do continue and hold on in the way in which they fet out at first, whether it be good or bad. And those who neglect to improve this first opportunity of their lives, do feldom recover themselves afterwards. God's grace may feize upon men in any part of their lives; but according to the most ordinary methods of it, the foundations and principles of religion and virtue are most commonly laid in a pious and virtuous education. This is the great opportunity of our lives, which fettleth and fixeth most men, either in a good or bad courfe, and the fortune of their whole lives does ufually follow it and depend upon it.

It is true indeed our day continues many times a great while longer, and we are to work while it continues; and it is never too late to begin to do well, and to enter upon a good courfe: But there is no fuch proper and advantageous feason for the beginning of this work, as in our youth and tenderyears. This is the accepted time, this is the day of falvation. God's grace is then moft forward and ready to

affift us; and we are then leaft of all indifpofed for the receiving of the impreffions of it; and the impreffions of it do then go deepeft into our minds, and are most lafting and durable. But if we neglect this opportunity, we provoke God by degrees to withdraw his grace, and to take away his Holy Spirit from us, and by degrees we fettle in vicious habits, and are every day more and more hardened through the deceitfulness of fin. It is never too late to work while the day lafts; but the fooner we begin this work, and fet about it in good earnest, the easier we fhall find it; if we defer it late, every step will be up the hill, and against the grain.

Thirdly, After this feafon is expired, there will be no further opportunity of working; when this day is once ar an end, then cometh the night when no man can work. The night is a time unfit for work, when we can hardly do any thing, if we had never fo great a mind to it; and there is fuch a night co-. ming upon every one of us, and wo be to us if we have our work to do when the night overtakes us.

For

There is ufually an evening before this night, when it will be very difficult for us, and next to impoffible, to do this work; and this is the time of ficknefs and old age, in which men are commonly unfit for any work; but most of all, that which requires the whole force and vigour of our minds, the bufinefs of religion. If we attempt this work then, we fhall go very heartlefly about it, and do it very imperfectly, and be forced to flubber it over, and to huddle it up in great haste and confufion, and fo as we can hardly hope that God will accept it. how unfit are men to do any thing, when they are full of the sense of their own infirmities, and life itfelf is become fo great a burden to them, that they are hardly able to ftand under it! How incapable fhall we then be of doing the greatest and most momentous work of our lives, when our faculties are almost quite spent and worn out, and all the powers of life are decayed in us; when our understandings are dark and dull, our memories frail and treacherous, and our hearts hard and deceitful above all VOL. V. things!

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things! When fickness and old age overtake us, we fhall then find to our forrow, that fufficient for that day is the evil thereof; we fhall have need then of nothing else to do, but to bear our infirmities with patience and decency; and it is well if we can rally together of the broken forces of our reafon, so much as may be a fufficient guard to us against peevishness and difcontent; we had need then have nothing else to do, but to be old and weak, to be fick and dy.

Befides, how can we expect that God fhould ac cept of any work that we do at fuch a time? With what face can we put off God with the dregs of our life or how can we hope that he will be pleafed with the fervice of thofe years, which we ourselves take no pleasure in? if we offer the lame in facrifice, is it not evil? and if we offer the blind, is it not evil? Offer it now to thy governor, and fee if he will be pleafed with thee.

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And fickness is commonly as bad a time as old age, and ufually incumbered with greater difficulties, and clog'd with more indifpofitions. If a violent dif temper feize upon us, it many times takes away the ufe of our reafon, and deprives us of all opportuniof confideration; it makes us both infenfible of the danger of our condition, and incapable of ufing the means to avoid it. And if we have neglected religion before, and have put off the great work of our life to the end of it, our opportunity is irrecoverably loft; for there is nothing to be done in religion, when our reafon is once departed from us, the night is then come indeed, and darkness hath overtaken us; and though we be still alive, yet are we as unfit for any work, as if we were naturally dead.

And this is no fuch rare and extraordinary cafe; for it happens to many; and every man that wilfully defers the work of religion and repentance to a dying hour, hath reafon to fear that he shall be thus furprized in his fin and fecurity, and by the juft judgment of God, deprived of all the opportunity of life and falvation, while he is yet in the land of the living.

But

But if God be more merciful unto us, and visit us with fuch a ficknefs as leaves us the ufe of our understandings, yet all that we do in religion at fuch a time, proceeds from fo violent a caufe, from the prefent terror of death, and the dreadful apprehenfion of that eternal mifery which is just ready to fwallow us up, that it is one of the hardest things in the world, not only for others, but even for ourfelves, to know whether our refolutions, and this fudden and hafty fit of repentance be fincere or not : For it is natural, and almost unavoidable, for a man to repent, and be forry for what he hath done when he is going to execution. But the great question is, What this man would do, if his life were fpared? whether his repentance would hold good, and he would become a new man, and change his former courfe of life, or relapfe into it again? And it is by no means certain, that he would not be as bad as he was before; because we fee many, who, when they ly upon a fick-bed, give all imaginable teftimony of a deep forrow, and a hearty repentance for their fins, who yet upon their recovery, return to their former fins with a greater appetite, and make themselves ten times more the children of wrath than they were before. So that all the work that we can do at fuch a time, ought not to be much reckoned upon, and can give us little or no comfort; because it is fo infinitely uncertain whether it be real and fincere, and whether the effect of fo violent a caufe would laft and continue, if the cause were removed. Therefore we fhould work while it is day; for whatever we do in this evening of our lives, will be done with great difficulty, and with very doubtful fuccefs.

But befides this evening, there is a night coming when no man can work: Death will feize upon us, and then our state will be irrecoverably concluded: after that it will be impoffible for us to do any thing towards our own falvation, or to have any thing done for us by others; the prayers of the living will not avail the dead, as the tree falls fo it lies; there is no wisdom, nor counsel, nor device in the grave whither we are going; therefore, according to the

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counsel of the wife man, what our hand findeth to do, let us do it with our might.

This counsel concerns all ages and perfons. I will apply it to the young, in the words of the wife preacher, Ecclef. xii. 1. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt fay, I have no pleasure in them. To them who are in the vigour of their age, in the words of the Prophet, Ifa. Iv. 6. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. And to them that are old, in the words of another Prophet, Jer. xiii. 16. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he caufeth darknefs, and before your feet tumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light, he turn it into the Shadow of death, and make it grafs darkness. And let us, every one of us, of what age or condition foever, apply it to ourfelves, in the words of our bleffed Saviour here in the text, I must work the works of him that fent me, while it is day; the night cometb when no man can work.

SERMON