`DISCOURSE III. 01 written down for us in his own book, and which he will never give us to enjoy. We are all borderers upon the river of death which conveys its into the eternal world, and we should be ever waiting the call of our Lord, that we may launch away with joy to the regions of immortality But thoughtless creatures that we are perpetually wandering far up into the fields of sense and time, we are ga- thering the gay and fading flowers that grow there, and filling our laps with them as a fair treasure, or making garlands for ambition to crown our brows, till one and another of us is called off on a sudden, and hurried away from this mortal coast : Those of us who survive are surprized a little, we stand,gazing, we follow our departing friends with a weeping eye for a minute or two, and then we fall to our amusements again and grow busy as before, in gathering the flowers of time and sense. O how fond we are to enrich ourselves with these perishing trifles, and. adorn our heads with honours and withering vanities, never thinking which of its may receive the next summons to leave all behind us and stand before God ! but eaeh presumes, " it will not be sent to me." We trifle with God and things eternal, or utterly forget them, while our hands and our hearts are thus deeply engaged in the pursuit of our earthly delights : All our powers of thought and action are intensely busied amongst the dreams of this life while we are asleep to God, because we vainly imagine he will not call us yet II. " Whatsoever puts us in mind of dying should he im- proved to awaken us from our spiritual sleep." Sudden deaths near us should have this effect : our young companions and ac- quaintance, snatched away from among us in an unexpected hour, should become our monitors in death, and teach us this divine and needful lesson : The surprizing loss of our friends; who lay near our hearts, should put us in mind of our own de- parture, and powerfully awaken us from our dangerous slumbers. Sinners when they feel no sorrows they think of no death ; but when the judgments of God are in the earth, his Spirit can awaken the inhabitants of the world to learn righteousness ; Is. xxvi. 9. At such seasons it is time for the sinners in Zion to he afraid, andfearfulness to surprize the hypocrites ; Is. xxxiii. 14. Even the children of God have sometimes need of painful warn- ing- pieces to awaken them from their careless, their slothful anti their secure frame : And as for those souls who are indeed awake to righteousness, and lively in the practice of all religion, and virtue, such sudden and awful strokes of providence have a happy tendency to wean them from creatures and keep them awake to God, that when their Lord comes, the may find them watching, and pronounce upon them everlasting blessedness. 1H. " No person can be exempted from this duty of watch-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=