3'76 SURPRLZE IN DEATH. [DISC. III. we have often found these violent emotions of consci- ence vanish again, if the sinner has happened to recover his health : They seem to be merely the wild perplexities and struggles of nature averse tó misery, rather than averse to sin: Their renouncing their former lusts on the very borders of hell and destruction, is more like the vehement and irregular efforts of a drowning creature, .constrained to let go amost, beloved object, and taking eager hold of any plank for safety, rather than the calm, and reasonable, and voluntarydesigns of a mariner, who forsakes his earthly joys, ventures himself in a ship that is offeredhim, and sets sail for the heavenly country. I never will pronounce such efforts and endeavours de- sperate, lest I limit the grace of God, which is unbound- ed ; but I can give very little encouragement for hope to an hour or two of vehement and tumultuous penitence, on the very brink of damnation. Judas repented, but his agonies of soul hurried him to hasten his own death, "that he might go to his own place:" And there is abun- dance of such kind of repenting, in every corner of hell ; that is a deep and dréadful pit, whence there is no re- demption, though there are millions of such sort of pe- nitents; it is a strong and dark prison, where no beam ofcomfort ever shines, where bitter anguish and móurn- ing for sins past, is no evangelical repentance, but ever- lasting and hopeless sorrow. II. "Those that are found sleeping at the hour of death, are carried away at once from all their sensual pursuits and enjoyments, which were their chosen por- tion, and their highest happiness." At once they lose all their golden dreams, and their chief good is, as it were, snatched away from them at once, and for ever. They stand on slippery places, they are brought to destruction in a moment, and all their former joys are like a dream, when one awaketh, and finds himself be- set roundwith terrors," Ps. lxxiii. 18-20. Are there any of you, that are pleasing yourselves here in the days of youth and vanity, and indulge your dreams of pleasure in the sleep of spiritual death, think of the approaching moment, when the death of nature shall dissolve your sleep, and scatter all the delusive images of sinful.joy. The separation from the body of flesh is a fearful' shock given to the soul, that makes it awake in-
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