then, with this pretence; When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.

The TIME, it seems, was not proper for his immediate conversion. To become a penitent just then; on the instant; to be surprised into a good life, had the appearance of too much facility and inconsideration. He must take a space to reflect on the grounds and reasons of what had been offered to him. He had, besides, other affairs, which pressed upon him at this moment: or, if not, to deliberate on the matter, would render his conversion more solemn and effectual.

The PLACE, too, we may believe, was as little suited, as the time, to this business. "What! in a public apartment of his palace! in the presence of Drusilla, whose tenderest interests were concerned in the case, and whose delicacy required managing! before his pagan courtiers, and many, we may suppose, of his Jewish subjects, who would be equally scandalized at this precipitate conversion of their master and governor!" These, and other pretences of the like sort, without doubt, occurred to him and on the strength of these he concludes his procrastination to be fit, and decent, and justifiable, in a good degree, on the principles of virtue and prudence.

"But why, unhappy man (if one may presume to expostulate the case with thee) why this hasty and unweighed conclusion? Could there be any time more convenient for thy conversion, or any place more suitable, if thou wert in earnest to be converted?

Wast thou ever so prepared for this change as now? Was thy mind ever so convinced, or thy heart so affected? Didst thou ever hear and tremble till this day, and wilt thou expect such a miracle a second time? Can thy bad life be reformed too soon, or can it need an afterthought to justify such reformation? Can any other business come in competition with this? and can it deserve the name of weakness and surprise to give way to the powerful workings of thy own conscience? In a doubtful case, it may be well to deliberate: but can it be a secret even to thyself, that nothing is questionable here, but thy sincerity?

For what, let me ask, is that convenient season, which flatters thy present irresolution? Wilt thou find such a monitor, as Paul, in thy dependants? Will thy tax-gatherers preach righteousness to thee, and thy centurions, temperance? or, thy philosophers (if, perhaps, thou hast of these about thee, to grace thy pro

vincial pomp) will they reason with thee, on a judgment to come?

But the PLACE is unfit; and thou wilt send for Paul to confer in private with thee.

Wast thou then afraid to expose thy honour by this step? And did it seem too much to give to God and truth, the glory of thy conversion? True penitence knows nothing of these punctilios. The example had edified thy unbelieving court; and might have had its effect on the insensible Drusilla. Thy injustice and incontinence had been open to all men. Was it not fit thou shouldst atone for this scandal by as publica reformation? Yet still thy pretence is, a convenient season! As if the first season, that offers for renouncing a bad life, were not always the most convenient."

But I continue this address to the Roman governor too long, if you consider me as directing it to him only. Let me profess, then, that by Felix I mean every sinner at this day, who procrastinates in the affair of his salvation, and would colour that procrastination by a still more contemptible sophistry. For, let us be ingenuous. This miserable Pagan, after all, had something to say for himself. This was,

probably, the only time that repentance had ever been preached to him. He still, perhaps, was acquainted with little more than the name of Jesus for his teacher, as we have seen, insisted chiefly on the great truths of natural religion. If he then scrupled to take the benefit of this first and imperfect lecture, there is some allowance to be made for his folly. But what shall we say of those who possess every possible advantage of light and knowledge, who have grown up in the profession of Christianity, and are not now to learn either its duties or terrors? If such as these have sinned themselves into the condition of Felix, and yet resist the calls of grace, the commands of the Gospel, the exhortations of its ministers, the admonitions of their own conscience, all of them concurring to press upon them an immediate repentance; if there be among us such procrastinators as these, what topics of defence are there by which they can hope to excuse, or so much as palliate, their prodigious infatuation?

"Shall we say for them, or will they say for themselves, that they are young and healthy? that they have time enough before them, in which to grow wise at their leisure? that they wait till the boisterous passions have been calmed by reason and experience that they

expect a convenient season for repentance, it declining life, and the languor of old age? or that they shall find it, as others have done, on the bed of sickness, or on the bed of death?"

I have never heard that Christians have any better reasons than these for delaying repentance: and, if they have not, though the sophistry of Felix deserved to be laid open, the respect I owe to those who now hear me, will not permit me to imagine that such sophistry as this, can want to be exposed.

It will be to better purpose to set before you,

III. In the last place, the issue of this too natural alliance between procrastination and vice, in a FINAL IMPENITENCE; of which the case of Felix, again, affords us a striking example.

When I have a convenient season, says he to Paul, I will call for thee. This season came, and Paul attended; to what effect, we shall now understand.

When Felix dismissed him from his presence, he insinuated, nay perhaps thought,