The sermons of Master Henry Smith gathered into one volume. Printed according to his…The sermons of Maister Henrie Smith gathered into one volume. Printed according to his…

Consider this, ye which might have known a thousand things more than ye do, if ye had begun when Solomon taught you.

Consider this, ye which might haue known a thousand things more than yee doo, if yee had begun when Salomon taught you.

God will not alway knock at the door, Christ will not alway clock like an Hen, John will not alway cry in the wilderness; but mercy is in the foreward, and judgement in the rereward. They which can say now, We have a prophet; shall say, We had a prophet, but we entertained him like the Gergesites: so God sent him away from us like Jonah to the Ninevites, when the Israelites despised him. Yet Wisdom crieth in the streets, Let every Joseph store up before the famine come: for he which promiseth thee pardon when thou dost return, doth not promise that to morrow thou shalt return. Repentance is a gift, and a gift must be taken when it is offered. The time past is gone, and thou canst not recall that to repent in; the ⟨p. 472⟩time to come is uncertain, & thou canst not assure that to repent in; the present time is only thine, and thou mayest repent in that: but anon that will be gone too. Therefore, as Samuel began to serve God in his minority, as Timothy read the Scriptures in his childhood, and John grew in spirit as he ripened in years; so whether thou be old or young thy repentance cannot come too soon, because thy sin is gone before. If thou lackest a spur to make thee run, see how every day runneth away with thy life, youth cometh upon childhood, age cometh upon youth, death cometh upon age, with such a swift sail; that if all our minutes were spent in mortifying our selves, yet our glass would be run out, before we had purged half our corruptions. All these examples & sentences, and Proverbs, and reasons do cry with Solomon, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. This is the Kings commendation or greeting to the College of youth. But how should young men remember God, when old men forget him? If Noah be drunk, who shall rebuke Ham? It is time to remember GOD in age, or to forget him for ever. Therefore as the Israelites gathered twice so much Manna the day before the Sabbath as they gathered any day before