A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

6. Opportunity must be presently improved; For the neglecting of opportunity destroys the most. All our Salvation dependeth upon Christ, as to the meriting of it; but it dependeth upon opportunity as to the obtaining of it. The neglecting of opportunity is the greatest destroyer in the world. It is not so much the being bad, as the delaying to be good, that undoeth the most. It was not riotousness, but sleepiness, that excluded the foolish Virgins. The misery of man is therefore great upon the earth; because he doth not understand judiciously his time required to every purpose. Eccl. 8.6. It is not flat denial, but foolish delayings that ruin Christians. All that the Devil pretends to desire is your now, your present opportunity; he will offer God thy to morrow. He seemeth to be mannerly and modest in bringing men to damnation, Da mihi quod nunc, & Deo futurum, Let me have but the present time, and give God all the future. We miss of Heaven by saying to God (as Felix did to Paul) Go thy way for this time, Act. 24.25. Few deny, but most delay to be saved; And hereby Satan doth his work both plausibly and effectually. Delays put the likelyest and the handsomest cheat in the world upon a Sinner. Most are damned by delaying to be saved. And because every age hopes to live that which is to come, it liveth not that which is now present.

6. Opportunity must be presently improved; For the neglecting of opportunity destroys the most. All our Salvation dependeth upon Christ, as to the meriting of it; but it dependeth upon opportunity as to the obtaining of it. The neglecting of opportunity is the greatest destroyer in the world. It is not so much the being bad, as the delaying to be good, that undoeth the most. It was not riotousness, but sleepiness, that excluded the foolish Virgins. The misery of man is therefore great upon the earth; because he doth not understand judiciously his time required to every purpose. Eccl. 8.6. It is not flat denyal, but foolish delayings that ruine Christians. All that the Devil pretends to desire is your now, your present opportunity; he will offer God thy to morrow. He seemeth to be mannerly and modest in bringing men to damnation, Da mihi quod nunc, & Deo futurum, Let me have but the present time, and give God all the future. We miss of Heaven by saying to God (as Felix did to Paul) Go thy way for this time,