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'Not to put off this great and necessary work': a Tillotson sermon for Lent

From a sermon preached by John Tillotson, then Dean of Canterbury, on Ash Wednesday 1689, on 'The unprofitableness of Sin in this Life, an Argument for Repentance':

there is another great Miscarriage in this matter, and that is the delay of Repentance; men are loth to set about it, and therefore they put it upon the last hazard, and resolve then to huddle it up as well as they can: but this certainly is great folly, to be still making more work for Repentance, because it is to create so much needless trouble and vexation to our selves; 'tis to go on still in playing a foolish part, in hopes to retrieve all by an after-game; this is extreamly dangerous, because we may certainly sin, but it is not certain we shall repent, our Repentance may be prevented, and we may be cut off in our sins; but if we should have space for it, Repentance may in process of time grow an hundred times more difficult than it is at present.

But if it were much more certain, and more easie than it is, if it were nothing but a hearty Sorrow and Shame for our sins, and an asking God forgiveness for them, without being put to the trouble of reforming our wicked lives, yet this were great folly, to do those things which will certainly grieve us after we have done them, and put us to shame, and to ask forgiveness for them. It was well said of Old Cato, nae tu stultus es homuncio, qui malis veniam precari, quam non peccare, thou art a foolish man indeed, who chusest rather to ask forgiveness, than not to offend ...

Above all, let me caution you, not to put off this great and necessary work, to the most unseasonable time of all other, the time of sickness and death, upon a fond presumption, that you can be reconciled to God when you please, and exercise such a Repentance as will make your peace with him at any time ...

This is a very dismal and melancholy consideration, and commands all men presently to repent, and not to put off the main work of their lives to the end of them, and the time of sickness and old Age. Let us not offer up a Carcass to God instead of a living and acceptable Sacrifice: but let us turn to God, in the days of our health and strength, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, of which we shall say we have no pleasure in them; before the Sun and the Moon and the Stars be darkned. As Solomon elegantly expresseth it, before all the Comforts of Life be gone, before our Faculties be all ceased and spent, before our Understandings be too weak, and our Wills too strong; our Understandings be too weak for consideration, and the deliberate exercise of Repentance, and our Wills too strong and stiff to be bent and bowed to it.

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