THE GALE OF OPPORTUNITY.  
OR, A SERMON Preached (at Lidbury-North) at the Funeral of the Worshipful HUMPHREY WALCOT, of Walcot, Esq; JUNE 8th. 1650.  
And now Published, by Thomas Froysell, Minister of the GOSPEL at Clunne in Shrop-shire.  
As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially to them that are of the Household of Faith, Gal. 6. 10.  
Exhort one another daily, while it is called to day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, Heb. 3. 13.  
Filij hominum usquequo gravi cord? ut quid diligitis vanitatem et quaeritis Mendacium? Tempus hocanimabus non corporibus enim assignatum, dies salutis utique non voluptatis. Omnia tempus habent: Animabus nunc operam dare necesse est; nam in carne qui seminat, solum exinde metet corruptionem. St. Bernard in declamat.  
LONDON, Printed by M. S. and are to be sold by H. B. at the Sign of the Castle in Cornhill.  
1652.   

To the truly virtuous and his much Honoured, Mistress Anne Walcot of Walcot.  
IT was your Husband's desire (when alive) that I should preach His Funeral, and 'tis yours, that I should Print it; Else (for aught I know) it had never seen the light: For I count not any of my Grapes worth the Press: Therefore since it is your pleasure to see this Sermon in a Printed dress, I pray accept of it.  
When your dear Husband was alive, Ye were Two precious Diamonds set in the Ring of Marriage; God hath taken him away to shine in another World, and hath left you to shine a while in this world; It is but a while, and therefore spread forth all your beams, before you set in the West of Death, and be seen here no more.  
If we would shine with God in Heaven, we must shine for God on Earth: Let this Sermon of opportunities make you improve your opportunities: Shall the men of this world hug their opportunities for the world, and shall not we Husband our opportunities for Heaven?  
Society with Jesus Christ even on this side Heaven, is a kind of Heaven; and those Crystal streams of Joys which we might suck from God here, outid all the pleasures and braveries of this world; which made Bonaventure (when the Devil tempting him, told him, he was a Reprobate, and 
Si Non datur frui Deo et virtute post hanc vitam, fruamur eo in praesenti.  therefore persuaded him to drink in the present pleasures of this life, for (saith he) Thou art excluded from the future joys with God in Heaven) Answer, No, not so, Satan, If I must not enjoy God after this life, yet let me enjoy him as much as I can in this life: Oh that drooping Souls would thus quench Satan's suggestions! This were enough to rebound all his temptations back again upon him. Fruition of God a far off in this life (though we should never enjoy him in the next) is much better, than all the pleasures of the world below him: Ah! What then will our fruition of him in Heaven be? Joy in him here, and you shall enjoy him hereafter: Live to him here, and you shall live with him hereafter: And to this ●nd God gives you all your opportunities, to this high and happy end, that you may attain him. That himself, and all that he is worth may be yours: And let me tell you, 1 That a Sermon of opportunities is almost as necessary to be preached, as to preach Christ himself: because the opportunity to receive Christ is (in its kind) as necessary as Christ to be received: as Christ is called Salvation; so our opportunity is called the Day of Salvation: Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of Salvation. We lose Salvation itself, if we lose the day of Salvation; we lose Christ himself, if we let pass the day of Christ, If thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong unto 
2 Cor. 2. 6. Luke 19 42.  thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. A man that is to have a sum of money tendered him upon such a day, must be sure to watch and wait the day, if he would receive the money: He that hath a suit at Law, must observe the Termtime; if he lose the Term he will lose his suit: as Luther said, that Much of Religion consists in Adverbs: so say I, That much weight of our Salvation lieth in circumstances, in the circumstance of time and opportunity: As the whole weight of our Salvation is laid upon Christ, so the whole weight of our getting Salvation is laid upon our time, our opportunity: 2 Let Faith give you a presentiality of things to come, of Death to come, of your Account to come: Faith gives them a present Existence: set the Period of your Time near unto you, behold it is at hand, when you shall live no longer, pray no longer, have the help of Ordinances no longer; We know not how few sands are left in our Glass of opportunity, and when they are once spent, God will not turn the Glass again for us: 'Tis this that affects the heart: 'Twas this that awaked Niniveh to repentance: Yet forty days, and Niniveh shall be destroyed: How did this Alarm stir their Hearts! what (say they) but forty days? Are our days shut up into so narrow a room? What are Forty days? How soon will they see an end? This frighted them into a fit of Repentance: It is time for us (say they) to fast and pray, and rise out of sin, if our Sun be so near setting: I am persuaded if God had sent Jonah with this message, Yet forty years and Niniveh shall be destroyed, it had made no work at all upon them: it might have amazed them, but not started them up to such a present repentance: It is the near approach of our end that drives the work home in us: Tell a Scorner in his ruff and jollity, that he must die one day; He receives it carelessly, and makes nothing of it: but tell him, yet forty days, and you must be called to judgement, Nay Sir, but two or three days hence, and die you must; This goes to the quick, at this news the proud Ruffler is sodainiy dismounted, and his courage degraded, he loses his blood in his cheeks, and shivers at the heart, like the leaves of the forest that are shaken with the wind: Ah then, see death upon us: Look upon our end as standing by us; as near as are the shadow and the substance, so near are Life and Death; our life is but the shadow, death brings substance with it, substantial woes, or substantial joys in the bosom of it.  
Cato Had oftentimes spoken in the Senate, that the City Carthage must be destroyed, being too near a neighbour to the City of Rome: For a long time together he form no Oration in the Senate, but he usherd in that still as the conclusion: yet he could not carry it, because Scipio Nasica being made up of a contrary opinion, always pleaded on the other side, that it was for the good of the Roman Commonwealth that Carthage should stand: At last, Cato on a day brought a green Fig into the Senate among them, and told them, that this Fig was growing in Carthage but three days ago: and thereby warned them that a Navy might within three days arrive from Carthage, and lay siege to their City: When they heard this, The nearness of the danger, made such impression on their thoughts, that whereas before they could never be won upon to assent, now they voted not to give over till they levelled Carthage to the ground: And shall not eternity affect us? the nearness of it writ deep Characters of fear and care upon our hearts? Within three days, and death may lay siege to our City, to our Soul: beware of evil at hand, of death at hand, of Judgement at hand. Thou Fool (saith Christ) This night thy Soul shall be required of thee: ah then let us Act betimes, let not the night take us in a night, let not the night of Death take us in a night of sin and security, than we shall have a double night at once upon us.  
3 Opportunities are very precious: Every one according to the objects they lay out for, value their opportunities: there's no Prince or great person in the world, hath more Clients and attendants, than opportunity hath: All sorts Court her, and wait with humblest service on her: The Husbandman waits opportunity to blow, and sow, and reap: The Tradesman attends opportunity to make his bargains at lowest rate, and sell off his wares at highest price: The Ambitious man stands at the door of opportunity to raise himself: All (but fools) according to their occasions run out to meet, and bow the knee to opportunity, and shall not the dearest opportunities be precious to us? shall we not take the best opportunity by the hand? Opportunity to gain the most precious things is the most precious opportunity; opportunity to get the best treasures is the best opportunity: Godliness is great gain. Heaven is the highest advancement, The Soul is the Crown and Masterpiece of man, surely then the opportunity to get and save these should be counted precious opportunity: All things here (that are of the world) are but nothings, but Idols and shadows of the best things (and an Idol is nothing.) Time is 
1 Cor. 8. 4. Tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  but the Idol of Eternity, and things Temporal, but the Idol of things Eternal: Our estate and our days here are but an Idol: there's no divinity nor immortality in them: but God is an absolute and eternal Being, the spring of all Divine satisfactions, They that live in him, live at an high rate, and live for ever: How can he complain to want light, that lives in the midst of the Sun? How can he complain of Thirst, out of whose belly flow rivers of living water? Surely then opportunity to enjoy God, is the most precious opportunity. 
John 7. 38.   
Your Importunity hath setcht out this Sermon of Opportunity from me: and I have given you here more than I preached, the time being too narrow to deliver all at once, and therefore I was feign to omit many things in the Pulpit, which I had in my papers: The Spirit of the Lord Preach it all over again to our hearts: I commend you to the Lord,  
Who am Yours most deeply obliged to Honour and Serve you, Tho. Froysell. Clunne Octob. 8. 1651.   

To his highly HONOURED, Mr. John Walcott, of WALCOT. Esquire.  
SIR, In publishing this Sermon (Preached at your Father's Funeral) I could not but publish your Name to it, or it to your Name, you being so near to him, for Every Child is the Father multiplied: He loved you dearly, for his (and your own) sake, I cannot but love and honour you highly.  
This Sermon was Preached for him, but it was Preached to you; and therefore God looks that it should work upon you: For at that time you had two Preachers at once Preaching to you, the Preacher in the Coffin, and the Preacher in the Pulpit: He preached to you that you must die, This Sermon preached to you how you must live: His Death preached to you, that time will be gone; This Sermon Preacheth to you, how you should improve your time: As Death is the way to eternal life, so an holy life is the way to an happy death: Your Good Father died old, and you may die young: as God writes some men's life in words at length, so sometimes God is pleased to write in shorthand, and cut a long life into a small Monosyllable: and therefore turn and wind your present stock of time to the best, and grow rich in grace upon it. Remember  
1 You cannot begin too soon to serve Jesus Christ: One may begin too late, but he can never begin too soon to serve Christ: Where should the Flower of your Age grow but in the Garden of his service? 
Bp. Hall.  It is the Policy of the Devil to discourage Early holiness: He that goes out betimes in the morning, is more like to dispatch his Journey, than he that lingers till the day be spent.  
2 You can never do too much for Jesus Christ: Religion know sno 
a Religio non potest habere excessum secundum quantitatem absolu. am, potest tamen habere excessum secundum quantitatem proportionis, prout scilicet in cultu divino fit aliquid quod fieri non debet. Aqui. 22ae. q. 92. a 1. ad. 3.  excess: you cannot savour too much of holiness: as there be some persons that cannot bear the smell of Musk and sweet perfumes, it fills their brains and makes them sick, so Hypocrites, (and they are Hypocrites that) cannot abide the smell of holy preciseness, and the sent of strictness: Paul bids us be servant in spirit [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, seething hot] serving the Lord: Quinon zelat, non amat, He that hath not zeal for Christ, hath not love to Christ: True zeal is a Seal of our Election: Strictness and exactness is the beauty and lustre of Religion: I say, you cannot do too much for Jesus Christ, be hath done so much for us: And what doth Christ require of you, but he did the same for you? Is he not upon equal terms with you? Nay before hand with you? If he calls you to bear the Cross for him, did he not bear a greater Cross for you? Grace puts no limits to Holiness: 
Sus non potest ferre rosas & amaracum. Franz. & Plin. Rom. 12. 11. Iracundi sunt qui amant. Lucian. in dial. Merc. & Maij Finis appetitio non habet limites defini. o;. Aristot. Finis praescribit media, sed ipsi fini non praescribitur. Eccl. 7. 29. Gen. 1. 26.  He that makes God his End, thinks he can never have enough of God, or be too holy for God: And though his actions of Holiness, and his forwardness in them overrun his Credit, or overthrow his Estate, yet he cares not, reputes not; for 'tis not his End to preserve himself, but to serve Jesus Christ upon himself.  
3 Holiness is no upstart: Vunder which notion the world looks upon it: as if preciseness in Religion were a new fashion taken up, and put on by some but of late: No; Holiness was the first Suit that ever was put upon the back of man's nature: 'Tis elder than Sin: 'Tis the first borne: God made man Righteous: 'Tis more natural to man to be righteous; Sin is against nature: 'tis a defect of nature: It came (as I may say) of the wrong side of the Hedge, a mere Bastard: God is not the Parent of it, it hath nothing of God in it, 'twas the Devil that begat it upon man's nature, and therefore 'tis of a later Edition than grace, Grace was, when sin was not: Let us make man (saith God) in our Image, after our likeness: You see Grace is of a most ancient house, of the highest antiquity, and therefore if any thing will, it will ennoble you.  
4 And that you may be beated into zeal for Jesus Christ, Live in the Scripture fire: as the Salamander (they say) lives in the fire, so do you live in the Scripture, as your Element: It will scorch you into en holy love to Jesus Christ: No book becomes your hand like the Bible: It made David wiser than his Teachers: 'Tis this Book that makes Preachers, and this Book is the best Preacher: This Book will preach to you in your Chamber: By this Book all Preachers and Hearers must be judged at the last day: This Book will expound to you that hidden Book that is within you, your Conscience-: The Book of Conscience is a secret and intricate piece, very few are well read in it, most deceived by it; but this Book of Scripture I say, this Book will discover it, and show you all the Errata in it; it will search your very heart, and tell all its secrets to you, nay this Book will tell out God's heart to you, and his mind concerning you, 
cc Ego odi libros meos, & saepe opto eos interire, quod metuo ne morentur lectores, & abducant a lectione ipsius Scripturae, quae sola omnis sapientiae fons est, etc.  Luther hated his own Books, and (saith he) I often wish they were all lost, fearing lest they should hold Readers in delay, and take them off from reading Scripture.  
Jerome gives a strange narrative of himself, how he was dragged to the Tribunal, because he had read Cicero more greedily than he did the Scripture; Being asked of my condition, (saith he) I answered, I was a Christian: Thou liest (saith the Judge) Ciceronianus es, non Christianus: Thou art a Ciceronian, not a Christian; for where thy Treasure is, there's thy heart also. Presently (saith he) I was put to silence, and had not a word to say: and among the stripes (for he had commanded me to be beaten) I was scorched more with the fire of Conscience considering with myself that Verse, In the Grave who will give thee thanks? Then I began to cr●, Have 
Psalm. 6.  mercy upon me, O Lord, have mercy upon me: This voice sounded loud amidst the scourge: At last, they that stood by, casting themselves down at the Precedents knees, prayed him, that he would pardon my youth, and give place of Repentance to my Error: Then he requiring punishment, if at any time I read heathen Books, I, who in such a case would have promised greater matters, began to swear deeply, saying, Lord, If at any time I should read those secular Books I have denied thee: And so upon this Oath he was dismissed: And he adds moreover, Neither was this a sleep or a vain dream, with which we are often deluded, Witness that Tribunal before which I lay; witness that severe judgement which I trembled at, that I pray God I never fall again into such examination by torment: I confess I had my shoulders black and blue, and felt the blows after my sleep, and have since read God's word with such endeavour, as I never read before any humane writings: Thus far Saint Jerome: Now let this passage awake you, and all of us: Let us lay aside the sublimest curiosities of man's wit, all Volumes for Scripture, And all employment for Heaven.  
Wing your haste, you have the flourishing plumes of Age upon you, How fare might you fly and soar up quite to an heaven of experience, and communion with Jesus Christ, if you would lose no time: I say, if you would lose no time: I hope you will not, I pray you may not: For you may see in this Sermon, That opportunity is an unvaluable Treasure, and yet a transient Treasure; it carrieth lasting things along with it, and yet itself lasts not, stays not with us: You may see in this Sermon, what great things you may lose, if you lose your opprotunity; you may lose yourself if you lose your opportunity.  
God hath set you upon the higher ground, above many in the world, Act highly for him: Lay up a Rich stock of Grace within you, that you may have an heart to act for him in public: I wish you prosperity here, felicity hereafter: Accept t his Dedication from him, who doth, and shall ever rest,  
Your real Servant in CHRIST JESUS. THO. FROYSEL. CLUN. Octob. 8. 1651.   
JOHN XII. VIII. For the Poor always ye have with you, but me ye have not always. 
Methinks I see a sad concourse of people before me this day; and truly who can be here and not be sad? A great man and a good man is fallen this day: He lived amiable, and died desirable; I am persuaded, you could all find in your hearts to wish him into life again, but that you are loath to displease God; We must submit and kiss the hand of providence in the death of our dearest Friends and Saints: We are now to perform our last office to him, we have brought him from his house to his house, I mean his grave, which must house him up till the great day of the Resurrection. 
Eccles. 12. 5   
You see what Death doth, it plucks up the tree by the roots. the Cedar as well as the Shrub: To day we are green, within a little while we are not seen: Stay but a few days, and such a day as this will be thy day: And therefore that we may make a serious and spiritual use of this occasion, turn your eye and cast your thoughts upon the words of my Text.  For the poor ye have always with you, but me ye have not always. 
These words are the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and they are an Apology or Defence which he makes for a poor Saint, who having done a good work (an act of love to Jesus Christ) was censured for it.  
1 The work which was done, you shall see in the third ver. Then took Mary a pound of ointment, of Spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, And wiped his feet with her hair, and the House was filled with the odour of the ointment: Observe,  
Observation. 1 The dear Saints are full of love to Jesus Christ:  
2 Love will spare no cost: the Saints will spend the Spikenard of their credit, and the oil of their life upon Jesus Christ: where we dearly love Christ, nothing is too dear for him.  
2 You shall find this work of love eclipsed, and censured in th' 4th. ver. Then saith one of his Disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simons Son which should betray him, Why was not this sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?  
Observation. There is no action so good, but some or other will be quarrelling with it, and find some fault in it: The best actions are capable of censure and disallowance: The noblest actions may have a scar of reproach and censure put upon them:  
And this he said (saith the 6. verse) not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a Thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.  
Observation. Avarice wants not beautiful pretences: Hypocrites carry foul sins under a fair vail.  
3 Now follows Christ's Apology and Defence of her, v. 7. Then said Jesus, Let her alo ne  
Observation. Jesus Christ will take his Saint's part and plead their cause 
●hil nocet ca●uniator, si te 〈◊〉 tua opera pro●t Deus. Ferus.  against the wicked.  
The Lord Christ pleads and justifies her action by two arguments.  
1 The one Argument, from the end of the action, The honour of Jesus Christ, ver. 7. [Against the day of my burying hath she kept this] That is, ye do willingly allow sweet balms and rich perfumes for the dead: Now I am within a little of death; Behold this woman hath herein reached beyond your conceit, she hath done this (as her last office) toward my burial: I hope you will afford me those solemnities of honour which are given to others at their burial; now, against the day of my Burial hath she kept this.  
2 The other Argument of defence he takes from the opportunity of it; she hath now an opportunity to show me kindness, 
●aesens pro fu●o, ut infra. ●h. 16. 10. ●at. 28. 20.  which within a little while will be taken from her [For the poor always you have with you, but me ye have not always] and therefore let her show me kindness while she may: Ye have not me always with you: that is, ye shall not have me always with you: Indeed, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, in respect of my divine presence, but me ye have not always with you, in respect of my humane presence. Six days hence I die, and go to Heaven, I go quite away from you, and you shall neither seem, nor have me again among you to perform any such offices of respect to me, and therefore as for this action, she doth well to take the opportunity, which will be taken from her. Observe, and 'tis the point I shall discourse of at this time;  
The Doctrine. There is an opportunity for good, which if we neglect, we may never have the like again.  
And therefore Mark rendereth it thus, for you have the poor 
Mark 14. 7.  with you always, and whensoever you will you may do them good, [i. e. at any time] but me (saith Christ) ye have not always. That is, you shall never want the opportunity of showing kindness to the poor, for ye shall never want poor among you; the poor that want, you shall not want among you, they shall always dwell among you, some poor or other as objects of your Charity: but you cannot always perform service to me in my body, for you shall not have me always in this visible form and presence with you. And therefore be not angry with this woman, in that whilst I am present in body, she hath done this service to my body; The hour is coming you shall wish to do the like, but cannot; The opportunity will be 
Luke 17. 22.  gone, when I am gone, ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it: And therefore I say, 
Docemur hoc verbo, ut non cessemus bene operari, quandocunque et quamdiu occasionem habemus, non enim semper id poterimus. Ferus in Loc.   
There is an opportunity of good, which if we neglect we may never have the like again.  
Time and opportunity differ: Time is the duration or succession of hours; days, or years, opportunity is a concurrence of all other helps with time to crown your desires, and give birth to your designs: opportunity is a meeting of time and means together to effect the end, when time and the means are married and lodged together they beget opportunity. 
What opportunity is, Occasionem pars Temporis, habens in sed alicuius rei idoneam fuciendi aut non faciendi opportunit●tem. Cicero lib. 1. de invent.   
As the Mariner that intends a voyage, Riggs his Ship, lieth ready in the Haven, and waits the wind, his time is all the time he stays there: His opportunity is when time, and tide, and wind, and all other accommodations meet together to send him away.  
If you would speak with a man upon such a day, your time is any hour in the day, but your opportunity to speak with him is, when he is at home, and can be at leisure, and will afford 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Tempus, spatium temporis in genere: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vero opportunitas Rei gerendae, quam Terentius articulum vocat Pasor. in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Isai. 55. 6.  you his company: When all these clasp together, that's your opportunity: So suppose thy business be-to speak with God, and seek him for grace or comfort, thy time to speak with God is all thy life time, but thy opportunity to speak with God is, when he is at home, and can be found; when he gives thee a heart to speak to him, and hath a heart to speak with thee, and therefore saith the Prophet, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: when all these are twisted together, that's the thread of thine opportunity.  
Time without opportunity is like a body without the Soul, a dead thing and mere inanimate carcase, and as the body is left without the Soul, so is time many times left without her opportunity.  
So that time may stay, when opportunity is lost: time may be present when opportunity Is past: the tree of time may 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  stand when the leaves of opportunity are dropped of: The stump of time may stick fast in the root, when the branches of opportunity are cut down: the head of time may stand, when the golden hairs of opportunity are fallen off: when opportunity is gone, the head of time is bald.  
And therefore I say, that there is an opportunity for good, which if we neglect, we may never have the like again.  
And this I will show you in two things.  
1 There is an opportunity of receiving good, which if we neglect, we may never have the like again.  
2 There is an opportunity of doing good, which if we neglect, we may never have the like again;  
There is an opportunity to get, and an opportunity to act; an opportunity to lay up, and an opportunity to lay out spiritual treasures, which if we neglect we may never have the like again.  
1 I say there is an opportunity of receiving good, which if we neglect, may be we shall never have the like again.  
1. Sometimes there is an opportunity to beget faith in us, which if we neglect we may never have the like again; as you 
Esai. 7. 10, 11, 12.  may see in Esai. And the Lord spoke again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God, ask it either in the depth beneath, or in the height above: But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. Ask a Sign, where thou wilt, where thou thinkest it may be the greatest miracle, and give thee the greatest satisfaction, either in the depth, or in the height, on earth, or in heaven.  
Ah what an opportunity had Ahaz here offered to inspire him with faith! A miracle where he would, and what he would; for the Prophet 
a Ratio signi autem (quod certe magnum enim) Regi Achas relinquitur libera, quan velit esse & habere, sive in supremis, sive in infernis. Sam. Bohl. in Isai.  prescribes not what sign Ahaz should ask, lest haply the truth of the miracle might be suspected; but leaves it to the Kings own option and free choice, whether he will have it towards the depth or height, in earth or heaven, if earth were too low for a miracle, to heigh then his faith, he should have one as high as heaven.  
Ah sweet opportunity! ah strong opportunity to work such a faith in Ahaz, as to trust God for ever! here was an opportunity for him to try God, to put the word of God to an experience; and ah! what scope had he? Ask a Sign in earth or Heaven, where thou wilt, and what thou wilt, I will not grudge●t, any thing to mount thy faith beyond the Region of fear and doubting; to make thee and my people Israel believe in me, thy faith shall want for nothing to support it; God gave him leave to be his own Carver.  
As when a great friend comes to your house, you entertain him in this Language, Sir, command all that's here, ask what you'll have, 'tis yours: So did God be speak Ahaz, all that's in heaven or earth is, for this minute, at thy service, the choicest miracle that heaven or earth can yield to banquet thy faith, command it, 'tis thine: what a rich table of opportunity did God spread for him? What variety of dishes [a sign from Heaven or earth] did the Lord set before him, to entertain and feast his faith? Thus doth God condescend to sinners; when they will not come up to him, he comes down to them: This was kindness enough to strike the fire of Faith out of the hardest flint: Ah what an opportunity was here lost! and once lost, 'twas lost for ever: we read not that the like was ever offered Ahaz any more, but he grew worse: when men despise Gods opportunities, they grow worse and worse.  
So again, you have another sad instance in the second of Kings; where Elisha prophesied in a time of scarcity, Thus saith 
2 Kin. 7. 1. 2.  the Lord, tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flower be sold for a Shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria; then a Lord on whose hand the King leaned, answered the man of God, and said, Behold, If the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? and he said, Behold Thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof: And see this verified. And the King gave the Lord, on whose hand he leaned, the charge of the 
Vers. 17.  gate, and the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died as the man of God had said. He seethe the plenty for conviction of his unbelief, but he dyeth and tastes it not, as a punishment of his unbelief.  
2. Sometimes an opportunity of repentance, and so of receiving pardon, is given to a man, which if he neglect, he may never have the like again: Such an opportunity Judas had: Judas had conceived a plot in the womb of his intention to betray Jesus Christ, and formed it up into a conspiracy with the Pharisees to deliver him to them, yet Jesus Christ gives him an opportunity once more to repent and recall himself before it be too late; Verily I say unto you, one of you shall betray me, He that dippeth 
Mat. 26. 21. 23, 24.  his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of man goeth, as it is written, but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed, it had been good for that man if he had not been borne.  
Ah Judas! What a thunderclap is here sent from heaven to awake thee? what a warning-piece goeth off to scare thy soul out of sin? 'Twas a providence thou shouldst sit at table once more with Christ, to hear something fall from his lips that might melt thy heart; Ah, what an opportunity hadst thou now put into thine hand, to repent, and retract thy purpose? for the Lord Jesus doth discover his sin, and doth dissuade him from his sin.  
1 He doth discover the Sin,  
But not the person, yet.  
I say, He doth discover the sin [one of you shall betray me] the Lord Jesus discovers the sin that he might recover the sinner, He shown him his sin, that he might not sin, he shown him his sin before hand, that he might not sin underhand: he did strike the sin that he might open a vein of confession in Judas, and make him bleed kindly: Ah what an opportunity was here for Judas to confess and be forgiven?  
2 But he doth not discover the person yet: he doth not name him that he might not shame him: he opens the sin but not the person, that he might thaw him and not harden him: that he might win him, but not irritate and provoke him: Jesus is yet tender of his credit, how much more of his Soul: what an heavenly dew of opportunity drops itself upon Judas to moisten his heart?  
In like manner, what an opportunity hast thou (O Sinner) to repent when God shall reprove thy secret Adulteries, and unjust deal, and hypocrisy in a Sermon, and not discover yet?  
2 He doth dissuade him from his sin by two arguments.  
By Love, and Terror;  
1 By Love, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me: which words were not spoken to discover Judas by this sign, but to aggravate his sin; as if he should say, my fellow-commoner, one of my familiar friends, that eats of the same dish with me, shall betray me.  
And here Christ endeavours to melt the heart of Judas, and cause him to forbear, by an argument fetched from all the kindness and intimacy that had been so long between them: what, my friend? my familiar? who doth not only sit at the same Table with me, but eat of the same dish with me, will he betray me? will that hand that hath been with me in the same dish, dip and die itself into a Crimson colour in my blood? he dissuades him by love, by the law of love and friendship.  
2 He dissuades him by Terror: The Son of man goes as it is written 
Mat. 26. 24.  of him, but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed, it had been good for that man if he had not been born: where observe,  
1 The Lord Jesus Christ be wails not himself, but Judas, even whilst he threatens Judas, he pities Judas: woe unto that man by women the Son of man is betrayed.  
2 He doth not yet unmask and disclose Judas: he carries the person yet in the clouds, he doth not as yet say in individuo, Woe to thee O Judas; but speaks still in the general, Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed: the individual discovery of Judas comes in afterwards, and here Jesus Christ does with this threatening waylay Judas, to make him retreat, 
b Paena predicitur, ut quem pudor non vicerat, corrigant denunciata supplicia. Hieronim in cap. 26. Mat.  seeking his salvation, It had been good for that man if he had not been borne: as if he had said, if nothing else yet will, if nothing that hath been said yet can recall the Traitor from his purpose of sinning, yet let this one thing bespeak him, and turn his heart quite about, his own safety, his own fearful condition which will follow upon his sin, let that put a stop to his progress: Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed, it had been good for that man if he had not been borne.  
Here the door of opportunity stood open to Judas, and Jesus Christ stood in the door to invite Judas, but he had not an heart to go in, and the opportunity was presently shut against him, and he never had the like again: he goes away, and becomes his own Executioner; Judas betrays Christ, and after betrays himself, when Christ called him, he would not repent kindly, and now he meets with an unkind repentance that Swallows him up in the gulf of despair.  
3 A man may have an opportunity given him to save his life, and so by consequent to save his soul, which if he neglects he may never have the like again. I will give you two 
Gen. 19 12, 13, 14.  sad instances, the one is Lots children in Sodom; Then the men said unto Lot, whom hast thou yet here, either Son in Law, or thy sons or thy daughters, or what soever thou hast in the City, bring it out of this place for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is great before the Lord, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.  
Note, The Saints are so near to God, that he will save those that are near to them, for their sakes; God would be a friend to Lot's friends, a father to his children. And Lot went out and spoke unto his sons in law which married his daughters, and said, Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this City: Behold, here's their opportunity! an opportunity to save their lives from fire and brimstone, and for aught I know, their souls from the fire of hell; O golden opportunity! for a man's life is his Treasure, an opportunity to save one's life is the life of all opportunities, and therefore poor Lot goeth to them, Grace doth not extinguish nature: he flieth upon wings of love to them, and tells them, he warns them like a Prophet, and bespeaks them like a Father: but what say they? he seemed as one that mocked to his sons in Law; and so he leaves them, for his time was short, and now their opportunity is gone, and they are gone too: Farewell now, you are all dead men and women: God first raines down the golden drops of opportunity upon them to save their lives, which they neglect, and presently he raines down showers of fire and brimstone on them, and takes away their lives. 
1. Kings 22. 4, 5, 7, 8, 17. & 28.   
Another instance is Ahab in the first of the Kings, Wilt thou go with me to battle to Ramoth Gilead? and Jehoshaphat said to the King of I Israel, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses, and Jehoshaphat said unto the King of Israel, inquire I pray thee at the word of the Lord to day, And Jehoshaphat said, is there not here a Prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him? And the King of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man Michaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil: And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the King say so. And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a Shepherd, and the Lord said these have no Master, let them return every to his house in peace: And Michaiah said, if thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me.  
Here was his opportunity to save his life: but go he will, his opportunity expires, and his life too, for he never returns alive again, for a certain man drew a Bow at a venture, and 
Verse 34.  smote the King of Israel between the joints of the harness, wherefore he said unto the driver of his Chariot, Turn thine hand and carry me out of the Host, for I am wounded.  
[certain man drew a bow at a venture] the man shot the Arrow, but God aimed it: the man shot at a venture, but God levelled it at Ahab: the man shot at he knew not who, but Ahab in the whole Army was God's marksman; Carry me away saith Ahab out of the Host for I am wounded: Oh Ahab; What thinkest thou now of God's opportunities! What sayest thou now of Micaihas words? I am wounded; saith Ahab, I believe thee, and the loss of thine opportunity wounds thee more; there's death wounds in thy Soul, as well as in thy body.  
4 When an hypocrite will not obey Gods express command, he may lose his heart, and his restraining grace for ever after; when a man loves a sin better than God's command, God leaves him to his sin: When a man gives up himself to a lust, God finds a time to give him up also, and sets him a going faster: he opens the sluices, and pulls down the banks, that the man's lust may run in a full stream, and have nothing to check it.  
Sinner! God will one time or other try thee secretly, with a casting command, a command that shall have the casting voice, and there's thine opportunity to make or mar thyself for ever.  
The Glass of Balaams' story will show you the face of this truth in it, when King Balak sent for Balaam to curse the people Israel, God denies him leave to go, he sets his command before 
Num. 22. 12.  before him, Thou shalt not go with them, thou shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed: Here's Balaams opportunity: the command is set before him to try him to try him, and Balaam stands now upon the turning point, But what's the issue? When the Messengers came again, Balaam solicits God again for leave to go, Balack promises him transcendent and high rewards, and they seal a deep impression upon the soft wax of his covetous heart, he is upon the wing to be gone, and what then? God 
Verse 20.  now in judgement gives him leave to go; God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, It the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them.  
But how can these stand together? in the 12 verse God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; But in the 20. Verse, If the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them; Why did God bid him what before he did forbid him? At the first time, when he told him, Thou shall not go with them, God shown him the will of his approbation, but when at the second time God said to him, Rise up, and go with them, 'twas a command with indignation.  
Some things God permits with indignation, not for that he gives leave to the act, but that he gives a man over to his fin in the act: This sufferance implies not favour, but judgement; God never liked Balaams' Journey, he displeasedly gives way to it.  
And now Balaam thine opportunity is lost, and thou a lost man: God will now give thee up to thine own heart; Balaam after this grows worse and worse; his heart is given up and hardened, 'tis steeped in sottishness, for an Angel stops him with a drawn sword in the way, yet he hath a mind to go, his Ass doth by miracle speak, and yet he hath a mind to go, ah Balaam! where's thine understanding? I see now thou art a gone man, for thine Ass is wiser than his Rider, the Ass becomes rational, Balaam becomes brutish, when men repel God's opportunities they become more brutish than the beasts.  
5 A man may by one short act of sin bring a long curse upon himself and his posterity: As Ham when he saw his Father Noah drunk, and uncovered in his Tent, Ah what an opportunity lost he now? had he veiled his father's nakedness, and thrown a cloud over it, he had received a blessing: but he goeth and proclaims it to his brethren, and they do what he should have done; they covered their Faterhs nakedness, and would not turn their eyes to see it. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him, and he said, Cursed is Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Canaan 
Gen. 9 24, 25.  was Hams son, Noah (
c Nec enim tantum hominis verbum est, sed Dei, imo plus & polius est prophetia quam ultionis aviditas. Ferus in loc.  as God's mouth) prophesieth a curse upon the son, for the father's sin; although some think 
d Non dubito filium ejusdem cum patre ingenij fuisse, & ipsum quoque, ut patrem risisse No, Mercer.  that Canaan first saw Noah naked, and deriding him alone, called his father to bear him company in that contempt; Here Ham is cursed in his son Canaan, and a curse entailed not only to Canaan, but to his posterity. Noah prophecies a long series, and chain of curses upon Canaan and his children: he makes the curse hereditary to the name and nation of the Canaanites, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren; that is, the vilest servant: for the Hebrews express the superlative degree by such a duplication, as [vanity of vanities] that is, most vain, a [song of songs] a most excellent song: So here, A servant of servants, that is, the vilest servant: Ah heavy and prodigious curse! for the Kernel and quintessence of this curse was spiritual, whereby Canaan and his posterity are sealed up for slaves to sin, and excommunicate from the Church of God: what a brave opportunity did Ham lose here to get a large and long blessing on himself and his posterity? and this opportunity he lost for ever: for the decree is gone forth, [a servants of servant shalt thou be.]  
Soul thy not obeying God in such a nick of time may lose thee, thou knowest not what: the doing or not doing of one 
1 Sam. 10. 8.  act may undo thee for ever: See another instance in Saul [And thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal, and behold I will come down unto thee to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice sacrifis ces of peace-offerings, seven days thou shalt tarry till I come to thee, and show thee what thou shalt do] And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed, but Samuel came not to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him, and Saul said, bring hither a  offering to me, and peace-offerings, and he offered the  offering; and it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the  offering, behold Samuel came, and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him: Samuel had bid Saul stay seven days in Gilgal till he came: six days he stayeth, and part of the seaventh, he had but a little part of a day to expect longer: his impatience will not give him leave, for he offereth Sacrifice before Samuel cames, and he had no sooner offered sacrifice but Samuel come: As soon as he had made an end of offering 
Verse 10.  the  offering, behold Samuel came, and tells him, thou hast done foolishly, for now, mark the word [now] now would the Lord 
13.  have established thy Kingdom upon Israel for ever: This one opportunity improved would have sealed thee the Kingdom; one act of obedience now, would have given thee a lasting mercy: this minute of time would have got thee a Crown: scarce is Saul warm in his Kingdom when he hath even lost it: how near may we be to a mercy and miss it? Couldst thou not wait a little longer Saul? Thou wast within an inch of a Kingdom, within a hair's breadth of an established fruition: Saul waited till the season, and then broke off: He got nothing by all his six days waiting, because he watched not this season: and the reason is, because though obedience at all times please God, yet there is a punctual and peculiar season of obedience, wherein he blesseth: all the other acts of obedience are but preparatory, there is a special nick and season of obedience which crownes with blessing: perseverance is the only grace that crownes a Christian: Methuselah lived nine hundred ninety and nine years, if he had fallen away from grace at the nine hundred ninety and nine years' end, all the good that he had done or got before had been quite forgotten: To obtain a blessing, it's not enough to obey God, but we must obey him in that point and nick of time wherein he will give the blessing; as to meet with a friend in a place; it's not enough to walk there often, you may walk there a week together and not meet him, but you must walk there in that nick of time wherein he appoints you the meeting.  
6 There is sometimes an opportunity given to receive some gift of the spirit, which if we neglect we shall never have the like again: as you may see in Elisha, when Elisah was to leave the world, and to ride in state to heaven in his Coach or bright Chariot, saith he to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee before I 
2 Kings 2. 9, 10, 11, 12.  be taken away from thee, and Elisha said, I pray thee let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me, saith Elijah thou hast asked an bard thing; nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so: And it came to pass as they still went on, and talked, that behold there appeared a Chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both a sunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven, and Elisha saw it, etc.  
Here was a ticklish opportunity, a slippery opportunity: had Elisha miss it, he had never had the like again: So mayst thou have some gales and rushings in of the spirit, to put thee on to duty, some breathe of the spirit to blow up thy cold heart into holy heats and desires; some coruscations and beams of the spirit to enlighten thee, some joggings and provokings to heavenly- mindedness, some strengthenings of the spirit against a lust proffered thee, which if you put off it may be thou wilt never have the like again.  
7 So when a man doth by providence enjoy the society and company of a godly man, that is, of a choice spirit; here he hath an opportunity to taste fruit from him, which if he neglect, he may never have the like again.  
A man may by providence be cast upon the company and fruition of such a precious and fruitful Christian, such an experienced Christian, that he shall hardly meet with such a one again in all his days: Ah! now how shouldst thou improve his graces whilst thou hast him? How shouldst thou suck experiences from him? How soon he may be removed from thee, or thou from him, thou knowest not: providence that lends thee him and his graces for a while, may carry him from thee to another place; and then thou losest thou knowest not what: Ah! how will the loss of such an opportunity afterward damp the spirit!  
Thus Faelix, whilst Paul was in prison, enjoyed a rich opportunity: he had a rich Jewel in the Casket of opportunity: Ah what an improvement might Faelix have made of Paul all that time? he had been happy Faelix then: Sometimes he sent for 
Act. 24. 24.  Paul and heard him reason of righteousness, temperance and judgement to come; but he might have had more of Paul's company if he would: he knew not what a price he had in his hand whilst he had Paul in his custody: but he lost his opportunity, for within two years he was removed, and never enjoyed such an opportunity again: And thus I have done with. the first part.  
2 There are opportunities of doing good, which if we neglect me may never have the like again.  
1 When you are travelling, and fall in upon the way with a man you never saw before, and a thousand to one never shall see again; here's an opportunity for thee to do his soul good, to drop heaven into his soul; which season thou mayst hever have again to season him with a word of grace: Thus Philip falling in with the Eunuch whilst he was riding on his way homeward from Jerusalem, closed with him and preached 
Act. 8. 35. 37.  Christ unto him, and was an instrument to save the soul of him whom he never saw before, nor ever after saw again.  
2 When thou art in an office for a time, it may be but one year, thou art clothed with authority and opportunity to do good, which thou mayst never have again. Time will strip thee of thy robes of Authority, thou mayst lay down thy life before thou layst down thy office; if not, yet annual offices expire, and fall off of themselves, and when thine authority is gone, thy opportunity is gone: as a man that hath a sword or a staff in his hand, if his staff be wrenched out of his hand, he hath lost his opportunity to soil his enemy; so it is when the staff of authority is passed out of thy hand unto another, thy time is gone.  
Faelix whilst he was in office, was married unto a gallant opportunity to release Paul out of Prison, but he did not husband the opportunity, and he was divorced from it for ever, 
Act. 24. 27.  for saith the Text, after two years Portius Festus came into Faelix room, and Faelix willing to show the Jews a pleasure left Paul bound.  
3 So when a man is dying, upon his deathbed, there you have an opportunity to do his soul good, which you shall never have again: Thus Christ dropped in grace and good counsel into the thief upon Cross, the Cross, was his death-bed, which had it been omitted, the thief's soul had been lost within a few hours for ever, and the opportunity gone too.  
4 So when a friend is in affliction, than thou hast an opportunity to strike whilst the iron is hot, to humble him while he is humbled: to speak a word in season to him while his heart is seasoning and melting: as the Jews and those eastern people do plough and sow their ground when the former rain hath softened it, Ah! Sow then (for now is the opportunity) I say, sow the seed of instruction upon a sinner's heart, while the former or latter rain of affliction falls upon him, it is a softening time, a melting time; while the rain drops, the earth is soft: He that made a scorn of godliness before, will then be of another mind, and hear counsel then if ever he will hear it.  
5 So when a godly man is by providence cast into a family, he hath an opportunity to distil showers and drop divine influences, whilst (like a star) he is fixed there, which if he omits, he may never have the like again: thus Paul being in the Jailor's family preached the Gospel to him, and to his household, and he believed in God (saith the Text) with all his 
Act. 16. 34.  household.  
6 So when a Minister hath interests in the hearts of a people, let him improve it, and look to it, for he knows not how soon the tide may turn, and he never have the like opportunity 
2 Tim. 4. 23.  again.  
7 Rich men, You that are in prosperity and have your sails filled with gales of wealth, you have opportunities to honour God, which others have not, and which if you neglect you may suddenly never have the like again.  
1 You have wherewith to maintain and encourage the Gospel, to give to the Saints; and truly it is the highest advance of riches, to make riches an instrument to advance religion: Oh than honour God with thy substance, lay out for God and his Gospel, lest the Lord, thou knowest not how soon, send a Northwind to blow upon thee, and freeze up thy wealth, and then thou mayest never have the like tide of opportunity again.  
2 Besides, you have greater opportunities for hearing the word, and praying in your secret closerts, then poor men have, who live upon the sweat of their brows: you may be praying when the poor must be labouring for their living, you may be meditating, whilst, they must be getting their bread.  
If then you, rich ones, see poor men that are necessitated to work hard for a mean living, more lively, more frequent and abundant in duties then yourselves are, know now you walk not by rule, where much is given, much is required; and to whom God hath given much, of them he asks the more; who are happier, they that are in the Kitchen, or they that attend upon the Prince?  
Ah, you rich and great persons! this is a high favour and transcendent honour, that God hath freed you from inferior drudgery, to employ you in more noble services in the Court, while others must serve their occasions; you that have fullness of the world, you have fullness of time to enjoy the King's presence, and wait upon Christ's person in holy duties, and therefore know that you should be more with God than others: Holiness is your trade, and your closerts are your shops, and every day is a Sabbath day to you: Take your opportunities; that may be enough for one which is too little for another; where God gives much opportunities, they must do much for God.  
8 A man may have an opportunity to suffer for Christ, which if he nglect he may never have the like again: To suffer for Christ is honourable, God will not put this honour upon every one, he puts this honour upon his vessels of honour: he gives grace to a man, and casts him into a vessel of silver or gold, and then throws him into the fire to melt, and suffer for his name: The metal of that Christian must be silver or gold that can suffer for Christ: a vessel of wood, throw him into the fire, his hoops will fly off, he'll break asunder, and never hold out.  
The three children that were cast into the fiery furnace, what glorious mould and metal were they made of? Had they not taken the opportunity to suffer for God, they might never have met with such a one again.  
1. For what a spreading same and glory of God did their sufferings scatter over all the world? God is acknowledge and adored by Nabuchadnezzar, a Decree is made that every People, Nation, and Language which speak amiss against the God of Shadrach, Mesback and Abednego, shall be cut 
Dan. 3. 28, 29.  in pieces: Then Nabuchadnezzar spoke and said, blessed be the God of Shadrack Meshach and Abednego, who hath sent his Angel, and delivered his servents that trusted in him, and have changed the King's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any God, except their own God. Therefore I make a Decree that every People, Nation or Language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill, because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort: Here God's glory shines out of their sufferings, even enemies acknowledge none like Israel's God.  
Here they found a most glorious opportunity to honour God, which if they had lost, they might never have had the like again; had they lost this opportunity God had lost his glory.  
2 To honour themselves: for  
1 They were no sooner in the fire, but they met with Jesus 
Dan. 3. 24. 25.  Christ there; Then Nabuchadnezzar the King was astonished, and risen up in haste, and spoke and said unto his Counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? they answered and said unto the King, True O King: He answered and said, Lo, I see four men lose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God: They were but three that were cast into the fire, but Nabuchadnezzar saw four there: And the form of the Fourth was like the Son of God: Whether it were Jesus Christ the natural Son of God, or an Angel, who are called the Sons of God, here was 
Verse 28. Job 1. 6.  a great honour; the Angels of the Lord are present with the Saints in their sufferings, and Jesus Christ is present with the Saints in their sufferings: When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the Rivers they shall not overflow 
Isai. 43. 2.  thee, when thou walkest through the fire thou shall not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle on thee: Angels company and Christ's company is a wondrous honour: We count it a great honour to have Princes to be our companions; the Saints in their sufferings have Princes for their companions, Jesus Christ and his Angels: and thy suffering time is opportunity to enjoy the company of these Princes and great ones.  
2 It was an honour to them, that God should work such 
Verse 27.  a noble miracle for them, as to stop the mouth of the fire, that it could not burn them; And the Princes, Governors and Captains, and the King's Counsellors being gathered together, saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their heads singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them: Ah wonderful! So did God honour his servants: the fire still retained its property of burning, and yet could not burn them: the power and 
c Impossibile est propria perfecta vel ad momentum temporis suis subjectis seperari. Keckerman log. lib. 1. Nam si urendi vis ab igne esset sublata, miraculum planè nullum a Deo fai. Editum; quid enim miraculi sit eam rem non urere, quae non possit urere? Non ergò in tollendâ ab igne urendi facultate miraculum consistebat, sed in eo quod cum vim urendi maximam ignis iste Babilonicus obtineret, vis ills fuit divinitum; impedita, ne se exereret, ut quidem statim post exeruit absumens eos qui in fornacem eandem inijciebantur. Kecker. ibid.  property of burning was not taken from the fire, for than it had been no miracle: what miracle is it for that thing not to burn which cannot burn? The miracle therefore did not consist in taking away the natural power of burning from the fire, but in this that when the fire had the gratest heat and power of burning, yet it could not burn them: The fire had its full power and property to burn, but could not exercise it: what an honour was it to walk safe in the midst of the fire? How did God magnify them, that they should be in the fire and yet be safe from the fire? the fire doth not kill them but kiss them: the fire doth not consume them, but court them; and denies itself, to give them courteous entertainment: they walk in the fire as in a pleasant air: what honours are these put upon poor creatures! they were bound hand and foot, when they were cast into the fire, and yet Nabuchadnezzar sees them walk: the fire had heat to burn their bonds, but not power to touch their bodies: Had they missed this opportunity of suffering they had miss of this honour.  
3 Their suffering was the Church's honour and advantage: it won great respect and honour to the Jewish Church and Religion: Neluchadnezzar makes a Decree that no people shall speak any thing amiss of the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: Now their God comes into request with the King himself, and their deliverance flying abroad upon the wing of fame, makes their God famous, and their Religion famous, and their people the Jews famous: How many taunts and derisions cast daily at the Jews for their worship, were suppressed by the severity of this Law? Without doubt this Decree was of special use for the comfort of the Jews, they had a sweet, calm, and Haltion time of peace and serenity upon it; Ah! What honour and advantage brought they to the Church by taking this opportunity of suffering?  
4 And did not their suffering and their deliverance (think ye) strengthen the weak faith of their distressed brethren the poor Jews? Did it not inspire them with courage, & root them deeper in the love of their Religion? How many Heathens and Chaldeans might this great miracle of deliverance work home to the true God? Surely Nebuchadnezars Decree made the learning of God famous among the Gentiles, a special help to conversion; as we may see in the three Magis or wise 
Matth. 2.  men.  
Ah my beloved! your sufferings may be the conversion of others: How willing would we be to preach a Sermon if we knew it would be the conversion of some Soul? Let me tell you that thy suffering for Christ may be the best Sermon that ever thou preachest all thy life long, and win more upon souls, than all the Sermons thou didst preach in all thy life: as we say, that to live well is the best preaching, I say also, to suffer well is the best preaching; To suffer for godliness is the most powerful preaching of godliness. He that can suffer best for Jesus Christ is the best preacher of Jesus Christ: the best sufferer is the best Preacher.  
Ah you Saints! this way you may all be Preachers: let your lives preach, and let your sufferings preach Jesus Christ: lose not your opportunities of suffering.  
5 I am sure also they will increase your future glory: 
2 Cor. 4. 17.  every suffering will be a grain put into the scale of your heavenly glory, to make it more weighty: For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory: Oh! be for ever contented to have fellowship with Jesus Christ in all his sufferings; It is said that the Saints have grace for grace with Jesus Christ, be content also to have suffering for suffering with Jesus Christ, you shall also have glory for glory with him: if you have suffering for suffering, you shall also have glory for glory with him: Ah then! Lose not your opportunities of suffering for Jesus Christ: if you lose your opportunity of suffering, you lose a part, a beam of your glory, your glory in heaven will be so much the darker.  
9 You that are young men, that are the twigs and branches of youth, you have blossoms of opportunities growing on you, which if you neglect you shall never have the like again: There are opportunities that are married to youth, which if you sever can never be united again: you have strength to serve Christ, which old age hath not: you have yet no cares of the world in your heads to keep out heavenly contemplations: you are yet scarce in the world, and therefore have not much of the world in you: Oh drink in heaven, before you drink in the cares of the world into your thoughts: Fill your thoughts first with God before you fill them with the world; fill your Sails with the gales of Christ, before they are filled with the airy vanities of the creature: you have a great deal of your time before you, when old men have their time behind them, gone and passed, and but a little of it left before them.  
10 So there is an opportunity sometimes to save a whole Church, which if we neglect, we may never have the like again: Such an opportunity came before Hester, which if she had not looked it in the face, and embraced it, all the Jews had been cut off at one blow by Hamans' policy: He had got the King's Decree that the thing should be done, If it please the King let it be written that they may be destroyed, and the King took his Ring 
Hester 3. 9, 10, 11.  from off his hand, and gave it unto Haman, and said unto Haman, the silver is given unto thee, the people also to do with them as it seemeth good to thee: The signet-Ring did represent the King's authority and name; and therefore when one gave his Ring to another he gave his power over to him to do what he would in his name; as Pharaoh took his Ring off from his hand, and put it upon joseph's hand, that Joseph might in the King's name sign Decrees as Viceroy of Egypt; and Alexander the Great when he was sick and lay speechless, and saw no hopes of life, took his Ring from his finger, and gave it to Perdiccas to signify (as is thought) that 'twas his mind that Perdiccas should succeed him: So Haman had got the King's Ring to sign the fatal Decree, And letters were sent by post into all the King's 
Verse 13.  Provinces to destroy, to kill and to cause to perish all Jews both young and old, little children and women in one day: Here the poor Church was at a dead lift: haman's teeming hopes were at the birth, nay (as it were) betwixt the womb and the world; and now here's an opportunity (now or never) to step in and save the Church: Save Lord, now or never, Hester takes the opportunity, Who knows saith Mordecay to her, whether thou art 
Hester 4. 14.  come to the Kingdom for such a time as this? Such a time, which carries nothing but death in the womb of it: Such a time, wherein the Jews, as if all their necks had stood upon one shoulder, were destined to the blow: at this time Hester strangled the design, and saved the Church by taking the opportunity, which had she neglected, a thousand to one she herself had never escaped to have had the like again.  
11 Sometimes there's an opportunity given to reform and purge a Land, which if we neglect may never be given again in our days, as you may see in Judges, the first and second Chapter; in the first Chapter there you shall find that 
Judg. 1. 21. 27. 29. 30.  the Children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem, but the Jebusiys did dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem: Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns, and neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelled in Gezer: and neither did Zebulun drive out the Inhabitants of Kitron, nor the Inhabitants of Nahalol, but the Canaanites dwelled among them, and became Tributaries, and what then? see Judge's 2. 1, 2, 3. An Angel of the Lord came up from gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the Land which I swore unto your Fathers, and I said, I will never break my Covenant with you, and you shall make no league with the Inhabitants of this Land, you shall throw down their Altars, but you have not obeyed my voice [you have not apprehended the season and opportunity, what then? 'tis lost in your days, and in your sons days, for many generations] For now I will not drive them out from before you: I have said it; it is now past cure, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you, And when the Angel of the Lord spoke these words unto all the children of Israel, the people lift up their voice, and wept, & they called the name of that place Bochin, that is Weepers: they wept so much, because they had let slip their opportunity, but all their floods of tears could not bring back the opportunity again, nor turn the tide: I pray God this be not England's case; time was when we had the opportunity to destroy the Canaanites, Heresy, Error, Profaneness out of land: but now the bird of opportunity is fled out of our hand: She hath taken wing, is fled away and gone: and I fear me we shall not see her again in our days: the Sceptre of Jesus Christ is the primum mobile of all good government, set him up, and his government right, and he will set Stat●s right: till this great wheel be set right, all the lesser are like enough to go wrong: Ah England! I am afraid of 
Ezek. 24. 13.  that Text concerning thee, Because I would have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shall not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.  
Let us now make application; And first then,  
Use 1 Neglect not your opportunities of heaven; make the best of your souls opportunities: lose not opportunity for (a world: you have a world of opportunities, lose not one opportunity for a world: O you that have souls to save, save your opportunities: oh your souls! oh your souls! I am afraid of your souls.  
1 you lose your souls, we Ministers lose all our labour, and Christ looseth all his blood that he hath shed for your souls, and what account can you give to God for so much cost? Most of you do not value your souls worth the saving: Many a man doth prise his Ox or his Ass more than some men prise their souls.  
2 The Devils have lost their opportunities, will you not take warning by the Devils? if you will not take your opportunities you will shortly be as irrecoverable as the Devils.  
3 Opportunities lost cannot be bought again for gold: As Ahab could not buy Naboths Vineyard of him, Naboth would take no money for it; so opportunities lost cannot be bought back again for money; if thou wouldst bid never so high for them, thou canst not have them upon any price; thou canst not pray thine opportunities back again, thou canst not weep thine opportunities back again, as you may see by Esau, he lost his opportunity, and When afterwards he would have inherited 
Heb. 12. 17.  the blessing, he could find no place of repentance, though he sought it with tears: Jacob was no sooner gone away with the blessing, but Esau comes in with hope of the blessing, the blessing was gone but one minute, and yet cannot be recovered.  
4 Every opportunity thou losest thou growest worse and worse: thou art bad to day, if thou losest this opportunity, 
Gen. 4. 6, 7.  thou shalt be worse to morrow: as Cain, God conversed with him (as it were) to day, Why art thou wroth? why is thy countenance fallen, if thou do well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou dost not well sin lieth at the door: but he was not bettered by this opportunity, and presently he grew worse upon it, 
Verse 8.  for the next thing he did was, he talked with his brother Abel, and slew him.  
5 Salvation, which these opportunities carry in their womb, is a transcendent birth, a blessing of the first magnitude: who would not be saved? all things else are but shadows and trifles, to this reality called Salvation.  
Those are the sons of wisdom that contend for substance, for God, for heaven: God is not a thing indifferent, and, Jesus Christ is no circumstance: Honours, ease, worldly profits 
Istae divitiae nec verae sunt nec vestrae.  and pleasures, all these, these I say, are in their nature things indifferent, and being compared and put in the scale with Christ, are less than things indifferent, even toys, dreams, loss, dung, mere nothings, at best but fading things, that pass away as a picture drawn upon the Ice, which soon vanisheth: They are mere accidents, nay separable accidents, that may be taken from the subject without its hurt, a man may spare them and yet be happy; but God is the Essence of the Soul, the eternal Entity of our happiness. This is life eternal to know thee 
joh. 17. 3.  the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.  
6 It may be (O Sinner) that art now in thy sins, it may be this very day, even this particular Sermon, may be thy day, that if thou repent not at this very Sermon thou losest eternal life for ever.  
Thus Jesus Christ ended the day of grace on the Scribes and Pharisees even in the very Sermon time whilst Christ was preaching to them, they were delivered up to hardness of heart.  
7 In a word, to pass by Jesus Christ carrieth with it the most surpassing wrath: to disrespect the offer of mercy 
Heb. 2. 3.  ushers in the greatest misery. How shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation. That is, you shall not escape so, you shall not pass with an ordinary doom upon you.  
Sinners! opportunity attends you, Christ is yours if you'is have him: the Lord Jesus is at your service, if you will embrace him: God sends up and down the world to offer Salvation, hence that phrase [my salvation is gone forth] Mercy waits on you, and knelt to you, and does obeisance to your souls; when you are running from it, mercy runs after you to catch you and embrace you: Ah how long hath freegrace stood at your doors, waiting your leisure when you would let her in? yet she calls and knocks again, you may yet be saved, but if you will go on still, and disrespect mercy, it brings the greatest misery; The greatest severity goes along with the Gospel: greatest severity goes along with the greatest mercy.  
The Gospel is the greatest mercy that ever saluted the world, and there's the greatest severity with the Gospel that ever came with any mercy into the world: Men shall be deeper in hell because heaven was offered them, and they would not: All they suffer here is but typical of the wrath to come: here they but sip of the top of God's cup, there they must drink the dregs, though it be eternity, to the bottom; a Sodomite in Hell shall far better than the refuser of Jesus Christ, See the 10. Mat. 14, 15. verses, and Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or City, shake off the dust of your feet; Verily I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorah in the day of Judgement, then for that City. Is not here the greatest severity with the greatest mercy? So again in Mat. 11. 21, 22. Woe unto thee Corazin, woe unto thee Bethsaida, for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sydon, they would have repent long ago in Sackcloth and ashes; but I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sydon at the day of Judgement then for you. Is not here the greatest severity going along with the greatest mercy?  
God can better bear any thing then the contempt of his free grace in the offers of mercy.  
More yet; When the Gospel began to be preached, faith the Text, Now is the Axe laid to the root of the Tree; Jesus Christ 
Matth. 3. 10.  comes with his Basket and his Axe, his Basket together fruit, his Axe to cut down the tree if it will not bear fruit; and is not here the greatest severity with the greatest mercy? If there were a sword on Moses thigh, there is an Axe in Christ's hand. Now is the Axe laid to the root of the tree [Now] that is, your opportunity is Now, if you pass by this [now] you are gone; for aught I can tell, you are chopped off presently. Neglect not the present [Now] least ye be cut off for ever.  
8 Consider sin is your dishonour! it doth 
f Mundiliaenim necessaria est ad hoc, quod mens Deo applicetur, quià mens Humana inquinatur ex hoc quod inferioribus rebus conjungitur; sicut quaelibet Res ex immix-tione pejoris sordescit ut argen. turn ex immixtione plumbi. Aquia. sum. 22ae. q. 81. are 8 cup.  degrade you. The vesture of man's nature is base and beggarly since it was patched with sin: It is a debasing of the gold to marry it with any metal of a courser birth, so 'tis a dishonour to man to match his golden nature (so God at first made it holy and righteous) I say, to match thy golden nature to base-born dross, to low-born sin, which derives its pedigree from hell.  
None but Jesus Christ is a fit match for the soul of man, take the opportunity then, and make choice of Jesus Christ, Espouse thy soul to him, and keep the marriage knot inviolate with him, Rom. 7. 4.  
9 Come in quickly, take the opportunity to come in presently to Jesus Christ, lest your sins (before you are ware) ripen too fast, and you be cut down you know not how soon Sins 
g De uno peccato enim in aliud, ex una turpitudine & stuhitiâ in aliam ruerant. Ita Aetas parentumpejor avis tulit, Hos nequiore, mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem. Neque tantum a peccato ad peccatum, sed ab errore & stuhitiâ ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad insaniam et corruptionem mentis, ac rationis Eversionem proceditur. Cocceius, ad 2 Tim. 3.  multiply; one sin will shortly multiply into many; they are like circles in a pond, one circle begets another, so doth one sin beget another, a lesser begets a greater, as in a case of stairs, one stair is a step to another, so every sin is a stair to help up to higher and worse sins.  
It is wonderful to behold the great flames bred out of small sparks of sin, how one sin hatched a greater; sin is like a whirl-pool, which first sucks in one part, and then another, and never desists until it draws in and plungeth the wholebody.  
10. man may perform duties of Religion after his day of grace is set upon him: you think that as long as a man performs duties, and doth many good things; his day of grace is not past: My beloved, òbserve me. A man may come to Church, perform religious duties, do many good things, have many melt upon his heart, after his day of grace is past and gone: as Saul went on in duties of Religion aswell after Samuel had pronounced the Lords doom upon him as before. How many times was he offering sacrifice to the Lord, after the Prophet had told him that he was a man rejected? How many good speeches came from him? what melt some time fell in upon his soul? as if there were hopes of him, and yet a lost man, his opportunities of Jesus Christ.  
Use 2 My second use shall be, to set out unto you the excellency and Majesty of God's opportunities, that you may stand in awe and reverence of them, and by no means slight them or neglect them: Mysteries are dreadful, we honour them; There are mysteries 
Mysteria tremenda.  in God's opportunities. My beloved, there are these three characters of mystery and excellency engraven upon God's opportunities; It may be some may think of and add more, but I at present observe three characters of mystery and excellency upon God's opportunities. First, they are easy, Secondly, they are sudden and unexpected, Thirdly, sometimes they come beside our  
1 First, God's opportunities are easy, they bring great matters to birth with easy travel: they bring hard things to pass easily: Oh that this were observed. In God's opportunity it is an easy thing to believe, to repent, to subdue a sin, and to overcome a temptation: as it is an easy matter for the Ship to go when she hath the wind to fill her sails. Every thing is done easily in God's opportunity, whether it be to save a soul, or to destroy a soul: because God in his opportunity makes all things concur and brings circumstances together to strike up the action suddenly you shall see it.  
1 First, In the ruin of a man, in the destruction of a man: when 'tis God's opportunity to destroy a man, what easy way will he make for't? As Saul, when God's time came that he must perish, he slew himself, there was no difficulty in the 
1 Sam. 31. 4.  work, he fell himself upon his sword, as the stone doth to its centre: How easily was Jericho taken? when the Priests blew the Trumpets, and the people shouted, the walls fell down flat of themselves: How easily was Pharaoh and his Army destroyed in the red Sea? The Sea was divided, and a way made for him, that he might not stand upon't, but run voluntary into the womb of death; Oh the efficacy of God's opportunities! How easily did Goliath fall, what stirs and blusterings did he act a little before upon the stage of pride and boasting, making a challenge to all Israel? but when God's opportunity comes how easily is he slain? And therefore the Scripture speaks this with an Emphasis. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him, but there was no sword in the hand of David.  
2 So God's opportunities work good for men easily, they bring great matters of good to pass with no difficulty: when 'tis God's opportunity that David shall take possession of his Kingdom, it falls into his mouth (as it were) not only Saul, but all his sons, (that might stand as so many screens between David and the Crown) are taken out of the way. The house of Judah, they of themselves, come and anoint David King over them. Then Abner saul's General of his whole Army, displeased with Ishbosheth revolts to David, and all the Tribes come to Hebron to anoint David King over Israel: Do you see? this great work is done to his hand.  
So in God's opportunities it is an easy thing to believe and repent, Act. 16. 14. Luk. 19 6. 1 Kin. 19 20.  
Ah my beloved! the ease of believing and repenting attends a peculiar opportunity of Gods own vouchsafing in which he doth more readily work then at other times.  
How shall I know when 'tis easy for me to believe and repent?  
1 When the light of the spirit doth flash into the eye of thy soul, than thy work is easy, as when the light of the day doth dart its rays in at the windows of thy Chamber 'tis easy for thee to read a small print. Thus when a light from Heaven did shine upon Paul, and shine into Paul, how easy did his work come off? Lord what wilt thou have me to do?  
2 When thy heart is made combustible and ready to take fire: as when the tinder is dry 'tis easy to light a candle, the least spark that falls on it takes fire, and when the fire is combustible, it is an easy matter to kindle a fire, it burns presently: So when thy heart is softened it easily takes the impression of the seal upon it, and when thy thoughts are stirred up and made combustible, 'tis an easy matter to kindle them into a fire of repentance, as in the Acts, when they were pricked in 
Act. 2.  the heart, they said, Men and brethren what shall we do? repent (saith Peter) and they took presently.  
3 When thine affections and desires are upon the wheel, than any work is easy, as when a load is upon the wheel 'tis drawn easily, whereas if you should go about to lug it along upon the ground it comes on heavily; and therefore the Lord pursuing Pharaoh, took off his Chariot wheels, and they drove on heavily: So when God puts thine affections upon the wheel, and sets them a going, then 'tis easy for thee to do great matters, and therefore observe thine opportunity.  
2 Gods opportunities are sudden and unexpected: they come upon us without preparation; God doth not send us word before hand, when he will visit us and come to us, as sometimes we send to a friend that we will dine with him, or speak with him at such an hour; but God's opportunities come suddenly upon us in the twinkling of an eye, before we be ware, when we know nothing of it, and the spirit rusheth in upon a man, and gives him no notice before hand, Thus Christ came and called Matthew [follow me] on a sudden, whilst he was sitting at the receipt of Custom, And he arose and followed him.  
Some poor souls have sent up many a prayer to heaven for assurance, and it hath not come, and they poor creatures have thought that God hath not regarded them all the while, and then, on a sudden, assurance hath come when they looked not for it: Ah dear father, how many mercies from thee have come to us uninvited! thy preventing grace and mercy doth always visit us uninvited: we send not for it, it comes freely to us.  
3 Gods opportunities come besides our intention, they come sometimes when we aim not at them: We stumble upon heaven, when we are seeking something else; as a man that digged in his garden only to set roots and plants, and found a pot of gold there; and as Saul went to Samuel to inquire for his Father's Asses, and found a Kingdom. This was besides his intention, he sought one thing and found another, his poor Asses were in his intention, but a Crown was the object he met with in execution. Oh the mysteries of opportunity! 'Tis so many times in the matters of heaven, I am found saith God of them that sought me not. Many a soul finds Heaven besides his intention: How strangely do some meet with a Commission? they meet with heaven and grace by accident (as it were) they go to a place only to seek health or food, something for the body, and there they light upon (besides their intention) salvation for their souls, as the lame man seeing Peter and John asked an alms, there was all his intention, and met with a cure both of body and soul: and the woman of Samaria came to the Well for water, and there found a Christ. It was an accident to her to meet Christ there: God's opportunity comes upon her besides her intention: Ah gracious God that she should come for water that very hour when Christ was there, not before nor after, but that very hour when Christ is there: she came for water which was but puddle, and found a Spring of life; So the Mariners that took Jonah into their Ship, they received him only 
Jonah 1. 3.  for the fare, he paid them, that was all their intention, their fare and pay for carriage was all their aim, but they met with a better fare, conversion to the true God, verse 16. Then the m●n (h●y were Heathens) feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord [that is, to the true God, not to Neptune but to the Lord] and made vows, So Moses went to mount Horeb only to keep his Father's sheep, but there he met with God in the burning bush. Thus you see God's opportunities are clothed with stately robes of mystery upon them, behold them therefore with holy fear and reverence.  
Use 3 My third use shall give the meeting to tender souls, who will be ready from the breasts of this doctrine to suck in fears and scruples, giving up their opportunities for gone: If this be so, than we have lost our opportunities; Object 1 I am an old sinner, and have stood it out all my days hitherto against Jesus Christ, he hath often called me, and I have often refused him.  
Answ. Yet thou art not in hell, thou art yet on this side the grave: O praise mercy and free grace, that thou art not yet in the centre of hell: thou canst not say that the oil of opportunity is spent, as long as thou hast a vessel more, a day, or year yet more left to receive it; the widow's oil ran still as long as there was a vessel to receive it: Thou canst not say that opportunity is done, till life be done: God hath many opportunities, though many are lost, yet all are not past. Thou sayest thou hast lost some opportunities, but God hath many opportunities in store: Indeed, if God had but one opportunity for thee and no more, thou wert gone as Esau said unto Jacob, Hast thou but one blessing oh my Father? But God 
Gen. 27. 38.  hath many blessings, he hath many mercies, and therefore many opportunities for lost souls, he doth not give off for many denials; after many refusals God comes on again, and woes afresh: he hath a treasury of opportunities, a quiver full of opportunities, and if one arrow of mercy be spent, if more arrows of opportunity be lost, and thrown away upon thee, he hath more yet to shoot at thee, and more yet; Oh that God would now draw out an arrow of conversion, and hit thy soul with it! What though God hath bend his bow, and shot many an arrow, many a Sermon at thee, and miss? Yet he will shoot again, he can shoot and hit, he is rich in mercies, and therefore rich in opportunities: Object. 2 Oh, but I have left my first love; I have abated in my flame of love to God, and his word, and the power of godliness; and is my opportunity yet before me to recover? is it not lost? Answ. No, it is not lost, thine opportunity yet is not gone, as you may see in Revel. 2. 4. 5. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Observe, thou that hast decayed in the heat of thy first love, God hath somewhat against thee, he hath a quarrel with thee, and therefore awake with all speed, for God hath somewhat against thee, but yet thine opportunity is not gone: for saith God in the next words; Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works, there's yet opportunity that shines on thee, the Sun is not yet set, though it be going down: and if thou wilt remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and make haste to rise, God will rather make the Sun to stand still (as he did in Joshuahs' time) The Sun of opportunity shall rather stand still in the orb of time, then that thou shalt lose thy soul, therefore look about thee.  
Object. 3 Oh but I am grown lukewarm in religion, which is the worst temper of all the rest, I care not which end goes forward.  
Answer. Christ will afford thee opportunities yet, as you may see in the Church of Laodicea, Rev. 3. 15. I know thy works [I know what they are and utterly dislike them] thou art neither hot nor cold, Thou art neither an open enemy, nor yet truly zealous of my Gospel, verse 16. Therefore because thou art lukewarm I will spew thee out of my mouth: as tepid and lukewarm water doth provoke the stomach to spew it out again: So will I (saith God) spew thee and thy profession out, it is so loathsome to me. Observe (thou lukewarm Christian) thou art in a sad and dangerous condition, God cannot bear with thy profession long, as the stomach cannot hold lukewarm water long within it, yet thine opportunities are not yet gone, for saith Christ, Behold I stand at the door, and knock, if any man hear 
Verse 20.  my voice, and open the door, I will come in unto him, and sup with him and he with me; though thou art lukewarm and deservest with thy profession to be spewed out of my mouth, yet I stand at the door and knock: Christ was going. (O observe thou lukewarm Christian, and therefore saith he) I stand at the door and knock, but (saith he) I'll pause a while before I go, I'll stay a little and then go, I am unwilling to leave thee yet, though thou shut me out I will not yet be gone, though the door be locked against me, yet I'll knock a while; for this phrase shows that Christ was stayed from entering in presently the doors being shut against him; yet he would stand there waiting, though you be all asleep within, yet I will see whether I can knock you up: The opportunity waited still upon them.  
Object. 4 But God seems to have cast me off into a Sea of sadness and desertion: he hath thrown me over Shipboard out of his presence into a depth of despair; I sink, I sink under his anger, I fear me I shall never recover, I am so drowned in the Ocean of his frowns, his waves are gone over my Soul.  
Answer. A man may think himself gone, and yet his opportunity not gone, he may think himself past help, and yet his opportunity not past; he may say, God hath cast me off, I shall never recover more, never see the face of God more, and yet opportunity show its face again, and smiles upon him. I will give you a strange instance, Jonah in the Whale's belly, he had sinned, highly against the Lord, like a Runagate who fled from his Master's service, and when he was upon the Sea, a tempest pursueth him, which would not give him over; a Lot to discover the malefactor is cast, and it falls upon Ionas; The Mariners they cast him over Shipboard: here was a fearful case, to be cast over Shipp-board with a guilty conscience: how did he fall into the Sea, that had a Sea of terror in him? Well; he is cast in, and a Whale swallows him, in whose belly he is lodged for three days and three nights, after such a manner as was never heard of before: how perplexed was his state think you? a man drowned and not drowned; devoured, but not digested; alive, but yet as dead; ah what a dying soul had he in the living Fish! expecting every minute the fearful dissolution of his Soul from his body; for he was under horror of conscience, now lying on him for his sin, and dreadful conflict of Spirit, as if God had forsaken him, and given sentence on him, for you shall read, some such were his expressions, Thou hast cast me into the deep, that is, the 
Jonah 2. 3, 4.  Sea; then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, my Soul fainted within me. Here Jonah thought his opportunity was gone, but the Whale brings him safe to the shore, the Whale's belly was a place of safety, a sanctuary to him, had not the Whale received him, he might have been drowned, for he could not swim to the shore. Ah thou poor dejected soul! know that God can be angry, and yet love thee; he can throw thee into the belly of despair, and make thee live in it, as the child doth in the womb, The Mother's belly is the Babes Sanctuary, the child lies safe in the womb, so shalt thou lie safe in the belly of despair, God will make the belly or womb of despair to travel in birth till thou art delivered, and therefore do as Jonah did, believe in the midst of despair, pray unto the Lord, cry unto him out of the whales belly, Out of the belly of hell (saith 
Jonah 2. 2.  Jonah) I cried and thou heardest my voice; Ah, blessed word! God will hear thee when thou art at the worst; if thou couldst pray in hell, and repent in hell, wert thou in hell, if thou couldst believe there, God would hear thee there; a sweet word to a despairing soul: Jonah in the Whale's belly said, Yet I will look again toward thy holy Temple; God will give thee leave to look up to him though thou art in the bottom of destruction: I am cast out of thy sight (said Jonah) yet I will look again toward thy holy Temple? A soul is never so forsaken of God but he may look up to his God; though thou art cast out of his sight, yet he will give thee leave to look upon him: ah thou forsaken soul! a look from thee will pierce his bosom, a mournful look from the child wounds the breast of the angry father; though the child dares not send out a word, yet a mournful and longing look conquers his Father's heart: Art thou forsaken of God? yet thine opportunity is not gone, dart a look upon him, if thou canst not pray to him, yet look upon him: God looks to see whether thou wilt look upon him: he waits to be gracious, 
Isa. 30. 18.  thou waitest to be comforted, he waits to comfort thee.  
5 Man's extremity is God's opportunity: when thou art most ready to perish, then is God most ready to save: God ordinarily doth not save in danger, but in extremity of danger; when 'tis at the worst with thee, then 'tis God's opportunity to help thee, as the woman that had the bloody issue, her extremity was Christ's opportunity; She had a wasting disease upon her, and time added to it; twelve long years had she withered and languished under it; besides the tediousness, her disease must needs get head by continuance, yet more to mend the matter, poverty (which is another disease) was superadded to her sickness (she had spent all that she had upon Physicians) her extremity now swells great, she hath two evils at once upon her, two unsuffererable evils, though she were sick, yet her wealth (as long as she had it) would have maintained and succoured her in her sickness, but now want doth pinch her no less than her distemper, and helps to make her perfectly miserable: she is now perfectly miserable, weak and sick, and nothing to refresh her in her weakness: had she spent all and gained her health it had been well enough, but alas, she hath beggared herself, undone her state, and her body; never the better, her money was wasted not her disease. Now her extremity is at the height, what then? her extremity is Christ's opportunity; when her case is most desperate she is healed. 
1 Kings 17. ●.  If I can but touch the hem of his garment I shall be whole. So the widow of Sarepta; Elijah sent to her by God to be sustained by her: when he comes he sustains her, she is sustained by him: for when he comes and asks her food, bring me I pray thee a morsel of bread in thine hand, she tells him, as the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a Cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a Cruise, and behold I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my Son, that we may eat it and die. She was now upon the borders of extremity: It was high time for the Lord to send the Prophet to her, for (poor Soul) she was now making her last meal; after one mean morsel she was yielding herself over to death; she was now going to eat her last, that she might die: and what then? truly her extremity was God's opportunity, Fear not said Elijah to her, go and do as thou hast said; make me a little Cake first, and bring it to me, and after make for thee and thy son; for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the Barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the Cruise of oil fail until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. What a shower of comfort was here? she was going to eat her last and die, and God sends the Prophet to her to provide for her the whole famine: How opportunely doth God provide succour to our distresses! It is his glory to help at a pinch, to begin where we have given over, that his mercy may be so much the more welcome by how much it is the less looked for.  
6 Though I have lost time, yet (say) Lord thou hast not lost time, thou wert before all time, and canst set time yet before me: My loss of time doth not put thee to a loss.  
Object. 7 But will God be a loser by me? I have lost him abundance of glory which I might have done him, had I improved my opportunities: In my losing my opportunities, God hath lost a great deal of his glory.  
Answer. God will be content to sit down by the loss if thou wilt but come in now: Oh transcendent mercy! he will lose a great part of his glory rather than lose thy soul, for he knows he can bear the loss better than thou canst.  
2 What he looseth of his glory by the one way, he gains another way, in pardoning of thee; he counts it his glory to pardon thee: as the Holy Ghost, saith, It is a man's glory to pass over a transgression. In pardoning the sins thou hast lived in for a time, he will gain glory to himself beyond all time; Thou hast sinned against him some years, and so he hath lost his glory 
Pro. 19 11.  by thee for some years, but if he pardon thee thou wilt glorify him (wilt thou not?) for ever.  
3 What ever glory thou hast lost him, he hath it all made up in Jesus Christ: come in now then and serve him cheerfully in Christ, do more for him in a little time, than thou hast done against him in a long time.  
Object. 8 But I have prayed long, and waited a great while, and the Lord doth not hear nor answer me, and therefore my opportunity is past; when God hath done hearing prayer, the opportunity is past.  
Answer. This doth not argue that thine opportunity is gone, but that God doth not answer thee as soon as thou askest: Thine opportunity is not past, but only God takes his leisure to hear thee when he pleaseth: the opportunity is not past, but God makes thee stay a while before he answers: the Lord doth not always time his answers to the swiftness of our expectations.  
2 Gods delays should make thee set on him with greater strength, and his putting thee off should make thee put on afresh with stronger violence; as the cold weather makes the fire burn hotter, so God's slackness should make thee more hot and earnest in prayer; and (by an holy Antiperistasis) be kindled from his coldness: Thus 'tis with the men of the world, when Balak sent messengers unto Balaam to come unto him, and curse the people Israel; Balaam denied him, and sent him word back, that God would not give him leave to come: what then? saith the Text, Balak sent again certain Princes more, and more honourable than they, so little is Balak discouraged 
Numb. 22. 15.  with one refusal, that he sent so much the stronger message, More Princes and more honourable; ah that we could be so importunate for our good, and with our God a denial doth but whet the desires of vehement Suitors: Why are ye faint in spiritual things, when ye are not denied but delayed? doth God put the off? send up more prayers, and more honourable again to him.  
3 And therefore when after much seeking thou meetest not with peace and assurance, do not say thine opportunity is past, but rather say, thine opportunity is not yet come, or thine 
Heb. 10. 37.  opportunity is yet to come, For yet a little time, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.  
How shall I know mine opportunity is yet to come? 
How shall I know mine opportunity is yet to come? Hab. 2. 1.   
1 When thou livest in expectation when thou standest upon thy watch tower to see what he will say unto thee.  
2 When thou waitest in the use of means, when thou wilt not leave the use of means: when thou stickest by the pool of Bethesda as the lame man did, that had a disease eight and thirty years, there he came to be healed, but he was still prevented, because when he was going down into the water, another always stepped down before him; yet there he stayed, he knew there was the place and means of healing, and from thence he would not go; if he would lie any where he would lie there: and was his opportunity lost, though he had waited long, and been put by often? (this is the very doubt) No surely: Christ visits him at last, there he waited in the use of means, and rather than fail he shall be healed without means.  
3 When the Figtree blossoms, than thine opportunity is yet to come, nay 'tis at hand: when any blossoms of goodness any buds and beginnings of a work appear, any breathe of soul in thee after Christ, than thine opportunity is at hand; as Christ said, Learn a Parable of the Figtree, when his 
Matth. 24. 32.  branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, know that Summer is nigh; and therefore cherish every blossom of grace, though never so tender in thee. Let not a May-frost nip them: Be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in: When your doors, your souls begin to lift up themselves ever so little after Christ, the King of glory is coming in.  
Object. 9 But you bid us take the opportunity, and come in now to Jesus Christ, and believe in him and repent, and come out of sin: alas you bid us do what we cannot do, we cannot believe, nor repent, nor come out of sin: or come to Jesus Christ of ourselves.  
Answ. 1 You are to believe that you cannot believe of yourself, or repent of yourself, or come out of sin by your own strength: and you are not therefore the farther from Christ, in that you are so far from yourselves, nay you are nearer to Jesus Christ. The farther you go out of yourselves, and out of your own strength, the nearer you are gone to Jesus Christ: when you seriously and feelingly say that you cannot believe of yourselves, This is the first seed of faith, I say to believe that you cannot believe of yourselves is the first seed of faith: you must first believe your own weakness, that you may have power from Christ to believe in Christ: Is there ever a poor soul then in this Congregation, that cries out, I cannot come out of sin of myself? this is the first work and step unto Jesus Christ, to receive strength from him to come out of sin: dost thou say thou canst not come out of sin of thyself? Now thou art the farther from thyself, and the nearer to Jesus Christ: They whom Christ helps, he makes them first see themselves helpless; Jesus Christ gives strength to them, whom he makes to see their own nothingness: they that say they cannot believe, Jesus Christ is in the way to make them believe: They that say Lord I cannot overcome my sin, Jesus Christ becomes 
2 Cor. 12. 9  their Conqueror for them; thy nothingness shall set out his power, for my strength (saith he) is made perfect in weakness.  
2 And again, whereas thou sayest, I bid thee do what thou canst not do, thou canst not repent, nor come out of sin of thyself, I answer and tell thee, God offers his hand with thee to the work, he does not only offer thee work to do, but he offers his hand with thee to the work: while he bids thee believe, his hand shall be with thee to make thee believe: This is the excellency and kindness of the Covenant of grace, when the Gospel bids thee leave sin, it puts in thee a new nature, that is contrary to sin, to hate it more than hell; If a man (to whom thou owest so much) bid thee pay him a thousand pounds, and give thee the thousand pounds in thy hand to pay him, now it is easy. Jesus Christ in the Gospel does not only say to thee, pay me what thou owest me. I am thy Saviour, believe in me, I come down from heaven to die for thee, come out of sin to serve me; I bought thee with a price, pay me down thy s●lfe, thy service which thou owest me. I say Jesus Christ doth not only thus bid thee (poor sinner) believe in him, and come out of sin, but he is ready to give thee his grace and strength to make payment. A new heart will I give thee, and a new spirit will I put into thee: and therefore do not say absolutely, I cannot believe, or I cannot come out of sin, for Jesus Christ is ready to give thee thy thousand pounds thou owest him, that thou mayst pay him out of his own stock; that thou mayst believe out of his treasury, that thou mayst come out of sin by his grace and mercy; The Lord Jesus offers his hand with thee to the work: as Bernard tells us of Pope Eugenius, that meeting with a poor but honest Bishop, he secretly gave him certain Jewels wherewith he might present him: So Jesus Christ will give thee the Jewels of faith and repentance wherewith thou mayst present him: If God did not furnish us, we should have nothing wherewith to honour him: The Father that gave thee Christ will give thee faith to receive Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ that gave thee himself, will give thee his spirit to draw thee to himself. 
Ver. 4.   
How shall we know our opportunities?  
I will lay down but two things before you.  
1 Consult with the Lord: as it is said of the children of Israel, that when the Gibeonites deceived them with a wile, and they spared their lives, whom they should have destroyed, the Text saith, They asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord; 
Joshua 9 14.  they had an opportunity here put into their hands to destroy the Gibeonites, but they miss it, because they did not consult with the Lord: do but compare the seventh ve●se with the fourteenth, and you shall see how right a man may g●esse of a thing sometimes, and yet want a clear light and discovery of it▪ because he doth not advise with the Lord; in the seventh verse, Said the men of Israel to the Hivites, peradventure you dwell amongst us, and how shall we make league with you? here the Israelites did guess aright, it was passed (a peradventure) for they did live among them; and therefore could not make a league with them: How right did they hi●? how true was their conjecture? Now the lock of opportunity was before them, they might have laid hold upon it, but they were in the dark, and walked in a cloud, not knowing who the Gibeonites were, because they asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord, (that is) by the high Priest putting on the breastplate of judgement wherein was the Urim and Thummim) so the reason why we know not our opportunities is because we consult not with the Lord: as he is the maker of time, so he is the revealer of time unto us: Nay, Gods will to work at such a time, is that which makes an opportunity, as suppose a man in a curious Appletree or Plumb-tree; your opportunity to gether, and carry away fruit is, when it is his will to shake the tree, before or after is no opportunity: you may walk, and watch about the tree, when he will shake down the fruit, but when he hath done shaking, your opportunity is done. So the Lord, who is the husbandman of his Church, he hath among all his other 
Joh. 15. 1. 1 Cor. 3. 9  trees, planted the tree of time, and he himself sits upon the top of the tree (as the God of time, the disposer of time) and when it is his will to shake the tree, then is your opportunity: So that if you would know your opportunities you must consult with the Lord, Lord, when wilt thou shake thy tree? when wilt thou drop down the fruit, that I may gather into my lap?  
2 If you would not lose any opportunity, apprehend every one; as Abraham by entertaining strangers, entertained Angels unawares: As a man that keeps an Inn, by entertaining all travellers that come, oftentimes entertains a Nobleman, or a Prince; So if thou entertain all opportunities that come, thou shalt at last entertain the noble opportunity, the Angel opportunity, the Prince of opportunities, the Soulsaving opportunity; a thousand to one thou shalt entertain Christ at last; as the Inn at Bethlem that entertained all passengers, entertained Christ himself there.  
Sinners, I told you before, that God will at one hour or other come with a casting command; one command that shall have the casting voice; that if you obey not then, mercy will shut up shop, and trade with you no more, but give you up for ever; and therefore I say now if you would not lose any opportunity, take every opportunity.  
And now give my discourse leave to cast some beams of reflection upon that worthy Gentleman whom God hath taken from us: 'Tis our duty to speak something of him: Though we bury his body, yet 'tis not fit we should bury his worth in a grave of silence and oblivion, and truly (my beloved) I do not think ye can bury the sweet remembrance of him; He will live a long time after his death, though he be dead, yet he cannot die, his name cannot expire so soon: Oh! that what good was in him might live after him to gives us example: He was an exemplary pattern; when he's laid in this grave he'll live above the grave, the sweet smelling spices of his lovely life and conversation will imbalm him, and keep him unperisht in your thoughts many years. I need not blazon his coat of arms (you may see them upon the sable hearse) the worth of his descent or lustre of his family, Et genus & proavos & quae not fecimus ipsi; you did all honour him and know him, Mr. Walcot of Walcot: besides that he was honoured with the office of Justice of Peace in his Country, & truly I think the office in some measure received honour from him, for he adorned it with his virtues: he moved in that sphere for many years together, in which place both he and that worthy Gentleman, 
And once a Member of the Parliament.  now with the Lord, M. Rich, More of Linley Esq. (whom for honour's sake I cannot but revive and mention) In which place I say (you all know) how they two uniting their beams together, refreshed your country with the warmth of their influence; executing Justice, relieving the poor, placing Orphans, punishing offenders, suppressing the profanation of Sabbaths, countenancing the godly, supporting the course of godliness and religion, honouring and backing the faithful Ministers of God. I well remember those times, I speak but what ye all know.  
He was also (having interest in so many Churches) as great an instrument (I think) as any in the Country, to propagate the Gospel, and preaching of the word.  
That excellent man of God Mr. Pierson of Brompton Bryan had a large room in this Gentleman's heart, and kindled that pious flame in him: and when M. Pierson died, this flame died not in this Gentleman's breast, till the oil of his life wasted; surely 'twas a true work, it lasted in him.  
It was his care to get as godly Ministers, and able as he could; and how dear were his Ministers to him? I dare say, next to his wife and children, First, he was a father to them: they were to oversee the flock, and truly he would oversee them that they should want nothing according to his ability. When they came to visit him, his common quxre was, Is it comfortable with you? do you want? tell me if you do, let me know it? I would not have you discouraged, nor go on drooping in God's work. I speak but truth themselves are witnesses.  
He was a mirror and example of temperance to all the Gentry in the country.  
I know no greater infirmity did lie upon him then timorousness, he had not that height of masculine spirit which dwelled in some men:  
But my beloved, he that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone. He was as meek as a Lamb: a child might reprove him; an inferior might boldly tell him where (he thought) he went awry. I never found any like him in this, he would ever love a man for it.  
As for Covetousness, I dare say he was not much acquainted with it; for 1 when he had an opportunity to exercise covetousness in the disposure of the Vicarage of Clun, he gave it me as freely as the Sun shines upon me in the day time; he was no mercenary Patron. 2 Covetousness and mercy never dwell together; a covetous man cannot be a merciful man; but he was a man made up of pity and mercy to the poor; I speak but what you all know; the bellies of the hungry, and the backs of the naked did every year proclaim his bounty and charity. 3 Besides a covetous liver is no free giver in secret: a covetous man, when he gives, will cause his gifts to run in a visible channel to be seen of men; but (to my knowledge) he was a secret and hidden reliever of godly widows and others that were in want; he refreshed their bowels with his hid treasures: he would send to know their indigencies and their straits; they need not sent to him, he would send to them. 4 Yet more, a covetous man is not a cheerful man under losses: but he was sweet and smiling under all his losses. 'Tis well known, these times srowned upon him, and made him a great loser, yet he had a most composed and contented heart under them, with a great deal of acquiescence in God. 5 Besides, no man knew the dimensions of his estate better than himself, so that knowing what I now do know, I admire at his constant liberality.  
He was of a meek spirit, wonderful free from the tang of revenge; I know no man had such a rare art of forgiving injuries as he had: if any had spoke ill of him, or done ill to him, he would be silent, & pass it by with this, They are but men, they show themselves to be men.  
He was a pattern of patience under affliction; Surely there was much worth in this Gentleman, your faces speak such sadness for his loss and departure; Methinks I read a sad love— and loving sadness written upon your faces for him.  
It may be some may think, that in setting out his graces and his works, that I place some merit in these things: No, I do not, and therefore let me tell you, that when he was like to die before, (for now God took him suddenly) he uttered this speech, when he saw his dear wife and servants weeping before him; Why do ye weep thus? cannot a man die without all this ado? and saith he, I do rely wholly upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ; and recovering that time; he did renounce all his own works that ever he had done, desiring to be accepted in Christ.  
And thus I have done speaking of him, and so speaking longer to you; only I would entreat you to pray for his family: He hath been an instrument of good unto the country, and now he is gone, pray for his Family, pray good on his Family; that much good may still come out of that Family.  
And what shall we say of ourselves? what shall I say to you? I say again, as I did before, Lose not your opportunities: shall we suffer the time to condemn us, that was given to save us? we must either be saved in it, or condemned in it: ah then! let us time our business aright for heaven: you that have no grace, get it: I say, get it; you that have any grace, use it for God, and increase it: use your grace to God's glory: act more grace, and get more 
Rom. 1. 17  grace. It is a sad sign when men do not go on in grace; the righteousness of God (saith Paul) is revealed from faith to faith; That is, they which have faith, shall have more faith: therefore this is a fearful sign that we have no faith nor grace, if God doth not increase our faith and grace in us.  
Again, If men will sleep and do no good, God comes and takes away their gifts: Take his Talon from him (saith Christ) from the unprofitable servant, in Act. 26. 18. You have God opening eyes, in Isa. 6. 10. you have God shutting eyes, in Joh. 15. 1. you have God dressing trees, in Mat. 3. 10. you have God hewing down trees, and in Mat. 
Mat. 25. 28.  21. there you have him cursing the tree, Never fruit grow on thee hereafter: If thou neglect prayer God will take away the gift of prayer; if you will not exercise repentance, God will take away repentance itself from thee; thy graces shall drop away one after another, and ane virtue die after another, until the Soul die too. Thus doth God smite the unprofitable servant, that crumbles away his time here, his opportunities here, and acts not for God: Take 
Verse 29.  away from him, even that which he hath; and then as the figtree began to whither, so do his gifts begin to flag and pair in him; as if a worm were still gnawing at them, his knowledge looseth its relish, like a dying man's palate; his judgement in him rusts like a sword that is not used: His Faith withereth as if it were blasted, & the Image of death is upon all his profession; he thinks (like Samson) to pray as he did, & speak as he did; he shakes himself to duty as at other times, but his strength is gone from him. woe to the Soul of such a one; Soul-losses, and Soul-Judgements are the worst.  
In one word, Sinners, wing your haste, delay not, but home to God: your opportunities are flying, fly you as fast home to God: let me argue the case with you as Abraham did with God, peradventure (faith he) there be 50 righteous in Sodom, peradventue 20, peradventure but 10, and wilt thou not spare it for these? as Abraham reckoned up the righteous that might have been in Sodom, so give me leave to number your days; it may be thou hast 20 years yet to live and wilt thou not serve God 20 years for a Crown of glory? 20 years' service is too little for so great a Crown of glory: when thou comest to die, thou wouldst be saved for ever, and wilt thou not serve out 20 years to be saved an eternity? It may be thou hast but 10 years yet to live, and wilt thou not serve God 10 years, who hast served a lust twice 10? It may be thou hast but 7 years yet to live, an apprentice serves out 7 years for a trade, and wilt thou not serve 7 years for an heaven? Jacob served twice 7 for Rachel, and wilt thou not serve one 7 for Christ? It may be there are but five cards in all left in the deck, but 5 years yet to live, nay, it may be but 5 months, nay, it may be but five weeks, nay it may be but five days, nay, it may be but five hours, as soon as you are come home from burying the dead, you (it may be) may return yourselves to be buried, ah then! is it not time for you to make hast? you that have no grace, yet a little while, and you may lose heaven, (and is it not time then for you to make hast?) and you that have grace, yet a little while and you may arrive at heaven (and is it not time also for you to make hast?) up then and be doing: you Saints, I say, up and be doing, it may be your work is almost at an end; be not weary, pluck up your spirits; he which is tired can crawl a little way; a little farther put on, a little farther yet, one step more for a Kingdom.  
Lastly, I would charge every one of you that have heard me this day, not to gather from any thing I have said, that his opportunity is past: for me up no such conclusion: I do not, I dare not say to the vilest sinner, that his opportunity is past: Though thine opportunity be passing away, yet I do not say it is passed away: this Sermon is not to shut any Sinner out of Heaven, but to hasten him towards heaven: because you have lost so many opportunities, I would hasten you to come in to Christ, whilst there are any yet left: because opportunties may be lost, I would quicken you to come in, before all are gone: Sinner, yet take Christ, and God will yet receive thee; repent now, and God will save thee now. Say not, thy opportunity is gone, for God calls thee, linger and delay no longer; because opportunity will be gone.  
Deo soli Gloria.