Sincere repentance is never too late, but late repentance is seldom sincere. The thief on the cross repented, and was pardoned in the last hour of his life. We have one such instance in Scripture – that none might despair; and only one – that none might presume.
The Family at Home, 1833.
All the longer your delay, the more your sin gets strength and rooting. If you cannot bend a twig, how will you be able to bend it when it is a tree?
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 65.
You cannot repent too soon, because you do not know how soon it may be too late.
He that saith he will be good tomorrow, he saith he will be wicked today.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 65
We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin.
Familiarity with vice does not produce disgust, it produces attachment.
Sermon, The Character of a Healthy Church – Part 5, Titus 2:6-8.
Delays be dangerous, our hearts will cool, and our affections will fall down… Satan hath little hope to prevail unless he can persuade us to omit our duties when the clock strikes, and therefore his skill is to urge us to put off till another time as fitter or better. Do it anon, next hour, next day, next week (saith he); and why not next year (Richard Capel)?
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 65.
He had, when in health, wickedly refused Christ, yet in his death-agony, he had superstitiously sent for me. Too late, he sighed for the ministry of reconciliation, and sought to enter in at the closed door, but he was not able. There was no space left him then for repentance, for he had wasted the opportunities which God had long granted to him.
Autobiography, The Early Years, 1962, p. 274, by permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle PA.
All the while longer thou delayest, God is more provoked, the wicked one more encouraged, thy heart more hardened, thy debts more increased, thy soul more endangered, and all the difficulties of conversion daily more and more multiplied upon thee, having a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 65.
Delay is a kind of denial.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 66.
[Regarding repentance:] The more we defer, the more difficult and painful our work needs prove; every day will both enlarge our task and diminish our ability to perform it. Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it, and the further on we go, the more we have to come back; every step we take forward must be repeated; all the web we spin must be unraveled.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 239.
By delay of repentance, sin strengthens, and the heart hardens. The longer ice freezeth, the harder it is to be broken.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 240.
