Bishop Challoner's Meditations - February 12th

ON AGAINST DELAY OF REPENTANCE

Consider first, that of all the tricks of Satan, by which he deludes unhappy souls to their eternal ruin, there is none more common, or more dangerous, than this by which he persuades them to put off their repentance and conversion to God from time to time, and millions of poor souls have been thus betrayed into that bottomless pit of never-ending woe, where the worm never dies and the fire is never extinguished; who thought as little of damning themselves, or of dying in their sins, as any now living; but by putting off their conversion, they have gone on provoking the divine justice, till by a just judgment of God they have been cut off when they least expected it; and dying as they lived, have been justly sentenced to that second and everlasting death. Unhappy wretches, who would not believe the just judge who so often warned them to watch; and assured them that otherwise he should surprise them, like a thief in the night, when they least expect him. Ah! how dreadful and how common are these judgments! 

Consider 2ndly, the insupportable affront that sinners offer to the divine Majesty, when being invited and pressed by his heavenly graces to a reconciliation with their offended God, they put him off till another time, shutting their ears to his sweet calls, and refusing him an entrance to their hearts where he stands and knocks. Alas! if he withdraws himself they are undone for ever; and how dare they treat him with so much contempt? Is it not an infinite goodness in him, to have already suffered them so long in their sins, to have restrained the sword of his justice from falling upon their guilty heads? to have kept them so long out of hell, hanging as they were all the while over this bottomless pit, and supported only by a slender thread of a brittle life, which he held in his hand! Is it not an inexpressible condescension of his divine Majesty, after their repeated treasons, to allow them any condition of peace and reconciliation at all? How much more to call after them, when they are running away from him, and to press them so earnestly to return to him, where he has no need at all of them, but only seeks their welfare? But what then ought they not to apprehend from his justice, if they still refuse his offers of mercy, and slight his graces and calls? Can any punishment be too great for so much insolence, for so much obstinacy, and for so much ingratitude? O! let them give ear to his treats by the mouth of the wise man, Prov. i. 24 &c., 'Because I have called, and you have refused to hear, I have stretched out my hand, and you would not regard me; you have despised all my counsels, and neglected my reprehensions, therefore will I also laugh at your destruction, and will mock, when that which you feared shall come upon you. Then shall they call upon me and I will not hear,' &c.

Consider 3rdly, the monstrous presumption the sinner is guilty of in wilfully persisting in sin, upon the confidence of a future conversion. Wretch that he is, how dares he pretend to dispose of the time to come, when he is not master of one moment of it? Or how has he the assurance to promise himself greater graces hereafter than those he abuses at present. Does he not know that God alone is the maker both of time and grace, and that he has neither promised the time or grace of a true conversion hereafter, to any of those who put off their repentance at the present; so far from it, that he has often signified to such presumptuous sinners, that they shall neither have the time nor the effectual grace which they promised themselves, but that they shall be surprised, and die in their sins. According to that of the wise man, Eccles. v. 8, 9. 'Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day, for his wrath shall come on a sudden, and in the time of vengeance he shall destroy thee.'

Conclude never to expose thy dear soul, by any delays, to the dreadful danger of dying in thy sins, but if at any time thou hast reason to apprehend thou hast lost the grace of God by sin, use thy best endeavours to be reconciled at once, 'Tis a dreadful thing to be an enemy to God, though it were only for one night: that night may be your last, therefore never venture to lie down to sleep, under the guilt of mortal sin.