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DISC. IT.)
THE WATCHFUL CHRISTIAN DYING
IN
PEACE.
183
and
actions,
at
once, by
a lethargic
stroke,
or
confounds
them
all
by
the delirious rovings
of
a
fever
;
the
light of
reason
is
eclipsed
and darkened, the powers of the
mind
are
all
obstructed,
or
the languishings
of nature
haYe so
enfeebled
them,
that
either
we
cannot
exercise
them,
to
any
spiritual purposes, or
we
are forbid
to
do
it,
for
fear
of
counter-working the physician, increasing the
ma lady,
and hastening
our
death.
Thus
we
are
not capable
of
making any new
preparation for the
important
wo
rk
of
dying
;
we
can
make
use
of
none
of the
means
of grace,
nor
do any
thing more
to
secure
an
interest in
the love
of
God, the
salvation
of
Christ,
and the
blessings
of
heaven.
This
is
a
very dismal
thought
indeed.
But
the
watch-
ful
christian
hath
this blessedness,
that
he
is
fit to
receive
the
sentence
of
death
in
any form
;
not
lethargies.,
nor
deliriums, nor languors of
nature
can destroy the
seed
of
trace
and religion
in the heart,
which were sown
there
in
the
days
of health
;
nor
can any
of
the
formidable
attend-
ants of
death cancel
his
former
transactions
with
God
and
Christ about
his
immortal concerns.
That
great
and
momentous
work
was
done before death
appeared, or
any
of
its
attendants. He
was
not
so
unwise
as
to leave
mat-
ters,
of
infinite
importance,
at that
dreadful
.hazard
:
He
is
not
now to begin
to
-seek
after
a
lost
Gad,
nor
to
¡begin
his
repentance
for
past
sins
:
He
is
not
now
a
stranger
at
the
throne
of
grace,
nor
beginning
to
learn
to
pray
:
He
is
not
now
commencing
his
acquaintance
with
Jesus
Christ,
his
Saviour,
in the
midst
.of
a
tumult
and
hurry
of
thoughts and fears
;
nor
are the works of
faith,
and
love,
and
holiness
to
be now
begun.
Dreadful
work
indeed, and infinitely hazardous
!
To
begin to
be con-
winced
of
sin
on the
borders of
death,
and
to
make our
first enquiries
after
God
and heaven
upon
the
very
brink
of
hell
!
To
begin to
ask
for pardon
when
we
can
live in
sin no
longer
;
to cry out,
Jesus,
save
me,
when
the
waves
of the
wrath of
God are
breaking
in
upon the
drowning soul! Hopeless
condition, and extreme
wretch-
edness
!
To have
all the
hard work of conversion to go
-
.through
under
the
sinkings
.of
feeble
nature,
and
to
begin,
the exercises
of
virtue
and
godliness
under
the
wild
disor-
ders
of.
reason
!
What a
madness
is
it
to
leave our
infi-
nite concvns
at
-such
a horrible uncertainty
!
[« Here
this discourse may
be
divided.
"]