LET those who are careless of it, by all means seek it. Will it at last comfort thee to think of thy mirth and pleasures, how honorable, how rich, or how well stored with friends thou halt been? What should take up thy heart, busy thy thoughts, or employ thy endeavors, but that which concerns thy eternal state? Wilt thou sin away the time of God's patience and thine own happiness? Is it not a time which God hath allotted thee for obtaining pardon? What would Cain, Judas, Pilate, Herod, and all the black catalog have given for the hope of it? O prize that here which thou wilt hereafter esteem infinitely valuable, and call thyself fool and madman a thousand times for neglecting the opportunity of getting.
The anger of a king is as the roaring of a lion. What then are the frowns of an infinitely just God? Why is thy strength and affection spent about other things? Would a forlorn malefactor going to execution listen cheerfully to anything but the news of his prince's clemency? Then seek it earnestly. Pardon is an inestimable blessing, and must not be sought with faint and tired feelings.
Seek it immediately. Is it not full time seriously to set about it? Thou hast lost too many days already, and wilt thou be so senseless as to let another slip? How knowest thou, but if thou refuse it this day, thou mayest be incapable of it to-morrow? There is but a step, a few minutes, between thee and death, and delays in great emergencies are dangerous.
Seek it for all your sins. Content not yourselves with seeking a pardon for greater or more aggravated sins, which frighten the conscience with every look; but seek the pardon of your inward, secret sins. The more you pray against the guilt of them, the more you will hate the filth of them.
Sinners that understand not the evil of sin, think pardon an easy thing, and that forgiveness will be granted of course. But those that groan under the burden of their sins, imagine it more difficult than it is. Presumption wrongs God in His justice, and every degree of despair or doubting wrongs Him in His mercy. God is willing to pardon. Ephraim but desires that God would turn him, and God presently cries out, "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child?" "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus." A penitent Ephraim is instantly a pleasant child. Ephraim strikes upon his thigh with confession, and God speaks to his heart with affection. God, as it were, takes the words out of Ephraim's mouth, as though He watched for the first look of Ephraim towards Him, or the first breath of a supplication.
God is willing to pardon sin. "Therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you." He hath waited all the time of your sinning to have an opportunity to show grace to you; and now you give it Him by repenting, will He lose the fruit of His waiting? It is the end of Christ's exaltation, whether it be meant of His being lifted up on the cross, or His exaltation in heaven; it is true of both that His end is to have mercy upon you.
Humble thyself before God, There must be a conformity between Christ and thee; He was humbled when He purchased remission, and you must be humbled when you receive it. God will not part with that very cheap which cost His Son so dear. When a man comes to be deeply affected with his sin, then God sends a message of peace. Then flew one of the seraphim and laid a live coal upon his mouth, and said, Thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged, when he cried out, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because am a man of unclean lips." The way to have a debt forgiven is to acknowledge it "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." God stood as ready to forgive David's unrighteousness, as he was ready to confess it. Mercy will not save a man without making him sensible of, and humbled for, his iniquity.