The Drunkards Character, Section 152
§ 152.
BUt admit what thou imaginest; namely,2 Or if death be not sudden repentance is no easie worke, and late repentance is seldome true. that death be not sudda…ne: much the better, for is it not commonly seene, that the purpose of proroging for a day, or a weeke, doth not onelyonly last for a yeare (as the suspension of the Councell of Trent, made for two yeares, lasted tenne) but as ill debtors put off their creditors, first, one weeke; then, another: till at last, they are able to pay nothing. so deale delayers with God, they adjourn the time prefixt, from next yeare, to next yeare, whereby they, and that good howre never meet: as you shall observe one Coach wheele followes another, one minute of a Clock hastens after another, but never overtake each other. In youth, men resolve to afford themselves the time of age to serve God; in age, they shuffell it off to sicknesse; when sicknesse comes, care to dispose their goods, lothnesse to dye, hope to escape, &c. martyres that good thought, and their resolution still keepes before them. Or else it fares with them, as with many an unthrifty Trades-man, who is loth to turne over his books, and cast up his debts, least it should put him into sad dumps, and fill him with melancholly cares.
When Christ went about to cast out divels, they said, he tormented them before the time, Matthew 8. 29. so, whensoever thou goest about to dismisse thy sinnes, and pleasures, though thou stay till thou be an old man; yet they will still say, thou dismissest them before the time; but then is the time, when the divell saith the time is not yet, for the divell is a layer.
Alasse! how many men post off their conversion, and at twenty, send Religion before them to thirty; then, put it off to forty; and yet not pleased to overtake it, they promise it entertainment at three score; at last, death comes, and will not allow them onehowre: and perchance when their soule sits on their lips, ready to take her slight, then they send for the Minister, to teach them how to die well. But as, in such extremity, the Apothecary gives but some opiate Physick: so the Minister, can give but some opiate Divinity, a cordiall that may benum them; no solid comfort, to secure them: here is no time to ransack for sins, to search the depth of the ulcer, a little balme to supple, but the core is left within; for though true repentance is never too late, yet late repentance is seldome true.
But here is great hope, thou wilt say, as it is the Divinity of diverse, let men live as they list, in ignorance, and all abominable filthinesse, so they call at last, and but say, Lord have mercy upon me, we must infallibly conclude, their estate as good as the best; as though the Lord had not said, you shall cry, and not bee heard, Prov. 1
I know the mercy of God may come, inter pontem & fontem, inter gladium & jugulum, betwixt the bridg and the brook, betwixt the knife and the throate; and repentance may bee suggested to the heart in a moment, in that very instant; but this only may bee, there is no promise for it, many threatnings against it, little likelihood of it; it were madnesse for thee to break thy necke, to try the skil of a Bonesetter.
But how many, on the other side, dye in Spira's case… who being willed in his sicknesse to say the Lords prayer, answered, I cannot find in my heart to call him father: whereas, not one of many leave a certaine testimony, or sure evidence behind them, that their repentance is true and sound. And indeed, how is it likely they should dispatch that in half an howre which should be the busines of our whole life… For as hee which never went to Schole, will hardly, when he is put to it, reade his neck-verse: so hee, that never learn'd the doctrine of repentance, in his life; will find it very hard, if not impossible, at his death. Let men therefore repent while they live, if they would rejoyce when they dye: let them with Noah, in the dayes of their health, build the Arke of a good conscience, against the floods of sicknesse; yea, if they have spent a great part of their time in the service of sinne, as Paul did, let them, for the residue of their life, make the world amends, by their double, yea treble endeavour, to redeeme that time, by a holy life, and godly conversation; for else we may justly suspect the truth and soundnesse of their repentance, and conversion. We seldome reade of any, that were long barren, either in soule, or wombe, but they had the happiest issue afterwards; witnesse Sarah, Manodh's Wife, Hannah, Elizabeth, Saul, Mary Magdalen, &c.
As for the purposes of repentance, which men frame to themselves at the last hour…, they are but false conceptions, that (for the most part) never come to bearing; and indeed, millions are now in hell, which thought they would repent hereafter; not being wise enough to consider, that it is with sinne in the heart, as with a Tree planted in the ground, the longer it groweth, the harder it is to be pluck'd up, it is too late to transplant Trees after two seaven years: or a Nayle in a Post, which is made faster by every, stroke: or a Ship that leaketh, which is more easily emptied at the begining, then afterwards. Or a ruinous house, which the longer it is let runne, the more charge and labour will it require in the repairing. Yea, sinne out of long possession, will plead prescription; custome of any evill, makes it like the lawes of the Medes and Persians, which may not be altered, or removed: an old vice, is within a degree of impossible to be amended; which maketh the Lord say; by his Prophet; Can the Black-more change his skin, or the Leepard his spots; then may ye also doe good, that are accustomed to do evill ler. 13. 23.
All other men have but three enemies to encounter with, the Divel, the World, and the Flesh; but he that hath long continued in the practise of any evill, hath a fourth, which is worse then the worst of them, even custome, which is a second, or new nature.