DJSe. III1 SVRPRd2E IN DEATH, 395 morrow." They put this evil day afar off, and indulge themselves in their carnal delights, without due solicitude to prepare for the call of God. There is scarce any thing produces so much evil fruit in the world, so much shameful wickedness amongst the sensual and the pro- fane, or such neglect of lively religion among real christians, as this bitter root of presumption upon life and time before us. Mat. xxiv. 48, 49. " The evil ser- vant did not begin to smite his fellows, and to eat and drink with the drunken, till he had said in.his heart, my lord delayeth his coming : It was while the bridegroom tarried, Sand they imagined he would tarry longer, that even the wise virgins fell into slumbers ;" Mat. xxv. 5. Ask your own hearts, my friends does not this thought secretly lurkwithin you, when you comply with a temp- tation, " Surely I shall not die yet, I have no sickness upon me, nor tokens of death, I shall live a little longer, and repent of my follies ?" Vain expectation, and groundless fancy -1 when you see the young,. and the strong, and the healthy seized away from the midst of you, and a final period put at once to all their works and designs in this life. Yet we are foolish enough to ima- gine our term of life shall be extended, and we presume upon months and years which God bath not 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 us into theeternal 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, we are perpetually wandering far up into the fields of sense and time, we are gathering the gay andfading flowers that grow there, and filling our lapswith them as a fair treasure, or making garlands for ambition to crown our brows; till óne 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 gather- ing the flowers' of time and sense. O how fond we are to enrich ourselves with the perishing trifles, and adorn our heads with honours and withering vanities, never VOZ. IL 2 e
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