40 NO NIGHT IN HEAVEN. [DISC. VII. do others, but let us watch and be sober ;putting on the breast-plate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation, for God bath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thess v. 5 -9. To animate every christian to this holy care and watch- fulness, let us think what a terrible disappointment it will be, after we have made a bright profession of chris- tianity in our lives, to lie down in death, in a state of sin and guilt, and to awake in the world of spirits, in the midst of the groans and agoniesof hell, surrounded and covered with everlasting darkness. Let our public pro- fession be as illustrious and bright as it will, yet if we in- dulge works of darkness in secret, night and darkness will be our eternal portion, with the anguish of consci- ence, and the terrors of the Almighty, without one glimpse of hope or relief. It is only those who walk in the light of holiness here, who can be fit to dwell in the presence of a God of holiness hereafter. " Light is sown only for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart,' Ps. xcvii. 11. and it shall break out, one day, from amongst the clods, a glorious harvest; but only the sons and the daughters of light shall taste of the blessed fruits of it. Think again with yourselves when you are tempted to sin and folly, what if I should be cut off, on a sudden, practising the works of darkness, and my soul be sum- moned into the eternal world, covered with guilt and de- filement ? Shall I then be fit for the world of light ? Will the God of light ever receive me to his dwelling ? Do I not hereby render myself unfit company for the an- gels of light? And what if I should be sent down, to dwell among the spirits ofdarkness, since I have imitated their sinful manners and obeyed their cursed influences? O may such thoughts as these dwell upon our spirits with an awful solemnity, and be a perpetual guard against defiling our garments with any iniquity, lest our Lord should come and find us thus polluted. Let us walk onwards in the paths of light which are discovered to us in the word of God, andwhich are illustrated by his holy ordinances, to guide us through the clouds and shades, which attend us in this wilderness, till our Lord Jesus .shall come, with all his surrounding glories, and take us to the full possession of the inheritance in light.
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