Directions and persuasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…Directions and perswasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…

36. Consider also that it is not possible for you to turn too soon; nor will you ever have cause to repent of your speediness. Delay may undo you: but speedy turning can do you no harm: I wonder what hurt you think it can do you, to be quickly reconciled to God. And why then should there be any Delay, where it is not possible to be too hasty. Do you think that there is ever a Saint in Heaven, yea or on Earth either, that is sorry that he stayed not longer unconverted? No: you shall never hear of such a repentance from the mouth of any that is indeed converted.

36. Consider also that it is not possible for you to turn too soon; nor will you ever have cause to repent of your speediness. Delay may undoe you: but speedy turning can do you no harm: I wonder what hurt you think it can do you, to be quickly reconciled to God. And why then should there be any Delay, where it is not possible to be too hasty. Do you think that there is ever a Saint in Heaven, yea or on Earth either, that is sorry that he stayed not longer unconverted? No: you shall never hear of such a repentance from the mouth of any that is indeed converted.

37. But I must tell you on the contrary side, that if ever you be so happy as to be Converted, you will Repent it, and an hundred times Repent it, that you delayed so long before you yielded. O how it will grieve you when your hearts are melted with the Love of God, and are overcome with the infinite kindness of his pardoning, saving Grace; that ever you had the hearts to abuse such a God, and deal so unkindly with him, and stand out so long against that compassion that was seeking your Salvation? O how it will grieve your hearts to consider, that you ⟨p. 418⟩have spent so much of your lives in sin, for the Devil, and the flesh, and the deceitful world. O you will think with your selves; was not God more worthy of my youthful days? Had I not been better have spent it in his Service, and the work of my Salvation? Alas, that I should wast such precious days, and now be so far behind hand as I am! Now I want that Faith, that Hope, that Love, that Peace, that Assurance, that Joy in the Holy Ghost, which I might have had if I had spent those years for God, which I spent in the service of the world, and the flesh. Then I might have had the comfort of a well spent life, and with joy have now looked back upon those days, and seen the good I had done to others, and the honour I had brought to God: whereas I must now look back upon all those years with sorrow, and shame, and anguish of mind. You will think to your selves then a hundred times, O that I had but that time again to spend for God, which I spent for sin! and to use for my Soul, which I wasted for my brutish flesh. Believe it, Sirs, if ever you be converted, you must look for these Repenting sorrows for all your