Monday, April 17, 2006
The Crown and Glory of Christianity in vol 4 of the works of Thomas Brooks
Ah friends! it is a dangerous thing to make repentance, which should be the practice of all your days, to be the task of old age. Doth not common experience tell us the longer the ship leaketh, the hard it is to be emptied; and that the longerr the the house goes to decay, the worse it is to repair; and the further the nail is driven, the harder it will be to get out? and so certainly the longer any man defers his repentance, the more difficult it will be for him to repent; his heart will grow more and more hard, and his will more and more peverse, and his judgement more and more corrupted, and his affections more and more disordered, and his conscience more and more debauched. Friends, do not not deceive yourselves, old age is but a sad, a sandy, a tottering and sinking foundation for you to build your hopes and happiness upon- for you to build your everlasting condition, your eternal making or marring upon. Are the dog-days of old age, are the trembling hands, the wrinkled face, the dazzled eyes, the stinking lungs, the fainting heart, the feeble face, the failing legs- are these a sacrifice worthy of God? is a body full of sores, aches, and diseases, and a soul full of sin, an offering becoming a God? Surely no. Oh, what madness, what wickedness is this, to serve Satan, your lusts, and this world with full dishes, and to put off God with scraps! to put off God with the dregs of old age! Certainly repentance is rather a work for youth than old age, it is a work rather for strength than weakness, and for health than sickness. Oh, do not let Satan deceive you, do not let your own hearts delude you, but fall upon the work of repentancepresently, knowing that as you have one day more to repent of, so you have one less day to repent in. What piece of vanity is it, that while the ship is sound, the tacking sure, the pilot well, the sailors strong, provisions laid in, and the wind favourable, that the mariners and passengers should lie in the road, carding boisterous, then to weigh anchors, and hoist up the sail, to make voyage into a fair country! And yet such is the vanity of most men, who in the days of their youth, health, and strength, who when their memories are strong, and their fancies quick, and their reason ripe &c., do sin away and fool away, and trifle away the day of grace, the offers of mercy, the motions of the Spirit, and the entreaties of Christ; and when old age comes, when their wits are cracked, their souls distracted, their senses stupified, their hearts astonied, their minds darkened, and their bodies diseased and distempered, oh, then they think to leap into heaven, with a 'Lord have mercy upon me' in their mouths: and though they have lived like devils, yet they hope they shall die like saints; and though they never took care of God's honour, yet hope that God will take care of their souls; but when the thread lives is cut, the next news that ever you shall hear of these is, that they are gone to hell. p 197-198
Even though Brooks wrote this over 300 hundred years ago people still put off repentance for as long as they can. They fail to realize that they could die at any time.
Even though Brooks wrote this over 300 hundred years ago people still put off repentance for as long as they can. They fail to realize that they could die at any time.
