which confession goes before the act. It is not reasoning away the conviction of duty; but it is admitting and violating it in the same moment. The language of the procrastinator is in terms like these; "I know that this is my duty,"—for if he does not admit the obligation in question, why does he excuse himself? why not say at once, this is not my duty, and I shall not perform it ?—his language, then, is, "I know that this is my duty; I know that my Maker has commanded it; I know that his commands relate to the present moment, and to every moment of my existence; but yet"-but what? we are ready to exclaim -does he in express terms refuse obedience? Does he absolutely say, "I will not perform it?" No, not absolutely, but he virtually says it in the plea of delay. He resolves to neglect the command of God, though he would not dare to utter the resolution. He resolves to neglect the command of God, though he would not dare, with the slightest whisper, to breathe the resolution into the ear of his neighbour. But remember, my friend, that the language which God regards, is not the language of the lips, but of the heart and the life. And if he who knew not, and did commit things worthy of punishment, shall suffer for it; what shall be the lot of him who knew his Lord's will, who confessed the duty he owed, and prepared not himself?

"Had I not come and spoken unto them," said our Saviour," they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin." Had not Felix heard Paul, had he not been convinced of righteousness and judgment to come, he would have had less to answer for. the plea of delay involves in it the very sentence of

But

condemnation; a sentence, which he who uses it, in the very act pronounces against himself.

II. The second characteristic of the plea of delay is its delusiveness.

It would be too much, perhaps, to say that it is absolutely insincere. None, probably, use it with the secret understanding that it is an artifice. Men, it is rather to be supposed, are its honest dupes. They sincerely imagine that the time of promised amendment will come.

Now, herein consists the delusion; not only that it is utterly improbable that the time ever will come, but that it is rendered more improbable by this very promise that it shall come. This very expectation of being religious by and bye, is, in fact, the greatest possible occasion for despondency. And so long as it is promised and resolved upon, the thing itself, of course, can never take place. The spirit of the promise, so long as it exists, forbids the very hope of amendment.

For thus I reason. Why cannot the wicked man turn from his wicked way now? Why cannot the vicious man dash from his lips the deadly cup, this moment? Why cannot the profane man cease to violate the sacred name of his Maker from henceforth? Why cannot the man who is delaying the great duty and interest of life, begin a course of religious virtue and piety this very day, this very hour? Is it because his habits, his passions, his desires are adverse? Without doubt this is the reason. Now, in the name of all that is true and rational, let it be asked-are these evil habits, and passions, and desires to become more favourable to virtue and purity by indulgence? Is the veteran sinner more likely to turn than the stripling

in vice? Is an aversion to religion, or to any part of it, to prayer, to watchfulness, to strict virtue; is such an aversion to be conciliated by being indulged and made habitual? Will you pamper the passions into self-denial? Will you exasperate an evil temper into gentleness and kindness? Will you throw to sin, under a notion that you may, by and bye, more easily restrain it?

up

the reins

Now mark the complicated delusion. It is difficult to reform a wrong habit or to establish a right one at present, and therefore it is deferred; deferred, let it be remembered, precisely because it is difficult. Delay, at every moment, increases the difficulty. Meanwhile the mind reposes with self-complacency on its specious purposes; and at last, it is probable, to complete the deception, pleads, in extenuation of its sins, the very purposes which it has violated.

There is a strange fatality attending all moral delinquency, all irreligion, in every form of it. To the transgressor things never-no, they never appear as they are. In the course of sin, or of sinful neglect, for instance, every human being believes himself to be an exception from all others. "I know, indeed," says the anxious delayer of his duty," that the time for amendment has never come to thousands who expected it as I do; but mine is to be a different lot. There are many days yet before me, and I intend, I am resolved, one day to pursue a different course. I do not intend to die as I live." Thus he is led on by the illusions of hope till he is beyond the reach of this world's great probation. Millions have walked in that way to the regions of moral perdition, yet he is persuaded there is something in his case to distinguish it from them all.

And every one of those millions, he knows, entertained the same persuasion; but their failure does not shake his confidence.

Of this miserable delusion the case related in our text, with the circumstances, furnishes a striking example. Felix heard the voice of truth and was troubled. Conscience spoke within him and would not be utterly silenced. He felt-O how solemn with a man in the visitation and the hour of conscience!-he felt that the call must be answered. He felt that he must do something. And how does he meet this necessity-this great, this self-enforced necessity? What answer does he return to the message? Alas! he dismisses it with a promise! He says to him who brought it, "Go thy way for this time!" The preacher retired. Why, you are ready to ask, did not the very sound of his departing steps carry alarm to the breast of this anxious inquirer? Ah! it was that delusive promise, “when I have a convenient season I will call for thee." With this he regained his peace of mind, and life passed on as before. In pride, in pleasure, in popular favour, Felix forgot the lonely captive. Day succeeded to day, and month to month; but we hear no more of the fatal promise. But what do we hear? Why, that this same man, this Felix, two years after, "to do the Jews a pleasure," contrary to what he knew to be the dictates of justice and humanity, "left the preacher bound in prison." Thus ended the promise of Felix; and thus, with scarcely an exception, end all pleas of delay in religion.com

But do they result in simple mistake? Is it the worst of the case that the delaying sinner deceives himself. No, my friends, delusion in matters of duty

is something worse than mistake-it is injury of the most alarming kind.

III. This leads me to the third remark; viz. that the plea of delay is dangerous. Its danger has already in part appeared, but it claims farther attention.

It ought to be considered, not only that the habit of procrastination is nothing else but a habit of deceiving ourselves, but that it is above all others fatal. It were bad enough to postpone our duty, and withal to delude ourselves; but to be morally deceived in being deluded, to make the fair promise of better things the very lure to perdition, to make ourselves the more easy when we are doing the more wrong, to muffle and to keep out of sight the deadly weapon only that it may strike a more secret and a more fatal blow; there is something in this that is well fitted to shock and alarm us. Yet this is the simple statement of what is true in the case of every man who delays to do what he knows that he ought to do. The direct way to make the inclination to sinful indulgence ruinous, is to flatter ourselves with the promise of amendment. There is nothing-for I must repeat and insist upon this observation-there is nothing so completely fatal to every reasonable prospect of being religious, as this promise to be religious at some future time. were not for this there might be some hope.

If it

It

But this promise of amendment is specious. seems to take off the boldness and impiety of transgression.

This paltering with conscience amuses and stupifies it at the same time. It were infinitely better to sayfor bold and impious as it may seem it would be saying the truth-"I do not obey the commands of God,