Baxter - HP BV4920 B38 1829

nviii be won, is a deathbed. It is when the last messenger stands by the couch of the dying man, and shakes at him the terrors of his grisly countenance, that the poor child of infatuation thinks he is to struggle and prevail against all his enemies; against the unrelenting tyranny of habit-against the obstinacy of his own heart, which he is now doing so much to hardenagainst the Spirit of God who perhaps long ere now has pronounced the doom upon him, "He will take his own way, and walk in his own counsel; I shall cease from striving, and let him alone"-against Satan, to whom every day of his life he has given some fresh advantage over him, and who will not be willing to lose the victim on whom he has practised so many wiles, and plied with success so many delusions. And such are the enemies whom you, who wretchedly calculate on the repentance of the eleventh hour, are every day mustering up in greater force and formidableness against you; and how can we think of letting you go, with any other repentance than the repentance of the precious moment that is now passing over you, when we look forward to the horrors of that impressive scene, on which you propose to win the prize of immortality, and to contest it singlehanded and alone, with all the weight of opposition which you have accumulated against yourselves-a deathbed-a languid, breathless, tossing, and agitated deathbed; that scene of feebleness, when the poor man cannot help himself to a single mouthfulwhen he must have attendants to sit around him, and watch his every wish, and interpret his every signal, and turn him to every posture where he may find a moments ease, and wipe away the cold sweat that is running over him-and ply him with cordials for thirst, and sickness, and insufferable languor. And this is the time, when occupied with such feelings, and beset with such agonies as these, you propose to crowd within the compass of a few wretched days, the work ofwinding up the concerns of a neglected eternity!

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