DISCOURSE III, 0ä us not sleep as do others, who are the sons and daughters of night and darkness ; 1 Thess. v. 4, 5. IL L0 Almost every thing around us in this world of sense and sin, tends to lull us asleep again as soon as we begin to be awake." The busy or the pleasant scenes of this temporal life, are ever calling away our thoughts from eternal things, they con- ceal from us the spiritual world, and cle(se our eyes to God, and things divine and heavenly. If the eye of the soul were but open to invisible things, what lively christians would we be? But either the winds of worldly cares rock us to sleep, or the charm of worldly pleasures sooths us into deceitful slumbers. We are too ready to indulge earthly delights, and while we dream of pleasure in the creatures, we lose, or at least, abate our delights in God. Even the lawful satisfactions of flesh and sense, and the enticing objects round about us, may attach our hearts so fast to them, as to draw us down into a bed of carnal ease, till we fall asleep in spiritual security, and forget that we are made for heaven, and that our hope and our home is on high. IIL " Many thousands have been found sleeping at the call of Christ :" Some perhaps in a profound and deadly sleep, and others in a hour of dangerous slumber : Many an acquaint- ance of ours has gone down to the grave, when neither,they nor we thought of their dying at such a season. But as thoughtless as they were,they were never the further from the point of death ; and we shudder with horror when we think what is become of their souls. While we are young, we are ready to please our- selves with the enjoyments of life, and flatter our hopes with a long succession of them. We suppose deáth to he at the dis- tance of fifty or threescore miles threescore years and ten is the appointed period : But, alas ! how few are there, whose hopes are fulfilled, or whose life is extended to those dimensi- . ons ? Perhaps the messenger of death is within a furlong of our dwelling; a few more steps onward, and he smites us down to the dust. There are some beautiful verses, which I have read perhaps thirty years ago, wherein the ingenious author describes the different stages of human life, under the image of a fair pros- pect, or landscape, and death is placed, by mistaken mortals, afar off beyond them all. Since the lines return now opon my re- membrance, I will repeat them here with some alterations. They are as follow : " Life, and the scenes that round it rise, Share in the same uncertainties. Yet still we hug ourselves with vain presage, Of future days, serene and long, Of pleasures fresh, and ever strong, An active youth, and slow declining age.
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