darkness; on earth light and darkness take their turns, prosperity and adversity, even to souls as well as bodies, succeed each other. If there be a gospel day, a day of grace now current, it will have its period of determination. Gen. iii. 6.

2. Common prudence and experience enable the husbandman, in the midst of summer, to foresee a winter, and provide for it before he feel it; yea, natural instinct teaches this to the very birds of the air, and beasts of the field.

And spiritual wisdom should teach Christians to exercise their foreseeing faculties, and not suffer them to feel evil before they fear it. But Oh! the stupifying nature of sin! Though the stork in the heavens knows her appointed time, and the turtle, crane and swallow the time of their coming, yet man, whom God hath made wiser than the fowls of the air, in this acts quite below them.

3. The end of God's ordaining a summer season, and sending warm and pleasant weather, is to ripen the fruits of the earth, and give the husbandman fit opportunity to gather them in.

And God's design of giving men a day of grace, is to furnish them with an opportunity for the everlasting happiness and salvation of their souls. "I gave her a space to repent." It is not a mere reprieval of the soul, or only a delay of the execution of threatened wrath, though there be much mercy in that; but the peculiar aim of this patience and bounty of God, is to open for them a way to escape the wrath to come, "by leading them to repentance. Rom. ii. 4.

4. The husbandman doth not find all harvest seasons alike favorable; sometimes they have much fair weather, and meet with no hindrance in their business; other

times it is a catching harvest, but now and then a fair day, and then they must be nimble, or all is lost.

There is also a great difference in soul seasons: some have had a long and fair season of grace; a hundred and twenty years did God wait upon the old world in the ministry of Noah. Long did God wait upon the gainsaying Israelites. "I have a long time held my peace; I have been still and refrained myself." Others have a short and catching season; all lies upon a day, upon a tide of time.

5. A proper season neglected and lost is irrecoverable. Many things in husbandry must be done in their season, or cannot be done at all for that year; if he plough not, and sow not, in the proper season, he loses the harvest of that year.

It is even so as to spiritual seasons: Christ neglected and grace despised, in the season when God offers them, are irrecoverably lost." Then," that is, when the season is over, "they shall call upon me, but I will not hear." Oh! there is a great deal of time in a short opportunity; that may be done or prevented in an hour rightly timed, which cannot be done or prevented in a man's lifetime afterwards. There was one resolved to kill Julius Cæsar such a day; the night before, a friend sent him a letter to acquaint him with it; but he being at supper, and busy in discourse, said, to-morrow is a new day; and indeed it was dies novissima, his last day to him. Whence it became a proverb in Greece, To-morrow is a new day. Our glass runs in heaven, and we cannot see how much or little of the sand of God's patience is yet to run down; but this is certain, when that glass is run, there is nothing to be done for our souls. "O that thou hadst known, at least, in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace; but now they are bid from thine eyes."

6. Those husbandmen that are careful and laborious in the summer, have the comfort and benefit of it in winter; he that then provides fuel shall sit warm in his habitation when others blow their fingers. He that provides food for his family, and fodder for his cattle, in the har. vest, shall eat the fruit of it, and enjoy the comfort of his labors, when others shall be exposed to shifts and straits. And he that provides for eternity, and lays up for his soul a good foundation against the time to come, shall eat when others are hungry, and sing when others howl. Isa. lxv. 13. A day of death will come, and that will be a day of straits to all negligent souls; but then the diligent Christian shall enjoy the peace and comfort that shall flow in upon his heart, from his holy care and sincere diligence in duties. "This is our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in sincerity and godly simplicity, we have had our conversation in this world." Remember now, O Lord, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect-heart." A day of judgment will come, and then foolish virgins, who neglected the season of getting oil in their lamps, will be put to their shifts; then they come to the wise and say, "Give us of your oil;" but they have none to spare, and the season of buying is then

over.

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7. No wise husbandman will neglect a fit opportunity of gathering in his hay and corn, upon a presumption of much fair weather to come: he will not say, The weather is settled, and I need not trouble myself; though my corn and hay be fit for the house, yet I may get it in another time as well as now.

And no wise Christian will lose a present season for his soul upon the hopes of much more time yet to come, but will rather say, Now is my time, and I know not what

:

will be hereafter hereafter I may wish to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and not see it." It is sad to hear how cunning some men are to dispute themselves out of heaven, as if the devil had hired them to plead against their own souls, sometimes urging the example of those that were called at the eleventh hour, Matt. xx. 6. and sometimes that of the penitent thief: But Oh! to how little purpose is the former pleaded! They that were called at the eleventh hour were never called before, as these have been; no man had hired, that is, called or invited them to Christ; and for the thief, as Mr. Fenner rightly observes, it was a singular and extraordinary example. It was done when Christ hanged on the cross, and was to be inaugurated; then kings manifest such bounty, and pardon such crimes as are never pardoned afterwards. Besides, God was then in a way of working miracles-then he rent the rocks-opened the gravesraised the dead-and converted this thief; but God is now out of that way.

REFLECTIONS.

1. I have indeed been a good husband for the world: With what care and providence have I look

ed out for myself and family, to provide food The careless to nourish them, and clothes to defend them soul's reflecagainst the asperities of winter? meanwhile tion. neglecting to make provision for eternity, or

take care of my soul. O my destitute soul! how much have I slighted and undervalued thee? I have taken more care for an horse, or an ox, than for thee; a well-stored barn, but an empty soul. Will it not shortly be with me as with the careless mother, who, when her house was on fire, busily bestirred herself to save the goods, but forgot the child, though it were saved by another hand! and

then minding her child, ran up and down like one distract. ed, wringing her hands, and crying, O my child! my child! I have saved my goods, and lost my child! Such will be the case of thee, my soul. Besides, how easy will my conviction be at the bar of Christ? Will not my providence and care for the things of this life leave me speechless and self-condemned in that day? What shall I answer when the Lord shall say, Thou couldst foresee a winter, and seasonably provide for it; yea, thou hadst so much care of thy very beasts, to provide for their necessities; and why tookest thou no care for thy soul? Was that only not worth the caring for?

The presumptuous soul's reflection.

2. Is it so dangerous to neglect a present proper season of grace? What then have I done, who have suffered so many seasons to die away in my hand, upon a groundless hope of future opportunities? Ah, deluded wretch! what if that supposition fail? Where am I then? I am not the Lord of time, neither am I sure, that he who is, will ever vouchsafe an hour of grace in old age, to him that hath neglected many such hours in youth; neither indeed is it ordinary for God so to do. It is storied of Caius Marius Victorius, who lived about three hundred years after Christ, and to his old age continued a Pagan; but at last being convinced of the Christian verity, he came to Simplicianus, and told him he would be a Christian; but neither he nor the church could believe it, it being so rare an example for any to be converted at his age; but at last, seeing it was real, there was a shouting and-gladness, and singing of psalms in all churches; the people crying, Caius Marius Victorius is become a Christian! This was written for a wonder; and what ground have I to think that God will work such