388 / 674
368
THE WATCHFUL CHRISTIAN DYING
IN
PEACE.
[DISC.
II.
own
strength and
sufficiency,
for
the glorious change
to be
wrought
in
your
sinful hearts,
and yet
neglect
not your
own
labours and restless endeavours,
under a pretence,
.
that
it
is
God's
work,
and not
yours.
"Awake,
thou
that
sleépest,. and
arise
from
the
dead, and
Christ
shall give
thee
light
;"
.Eph.
v.
14.
.
.
Nor
should frail dying
creatures, in their youngest
years, delay this
-work
one
day,
nor
one hour,
since
the
con-
sequences
of
being found asleep when
Christ calls, are
terrible
indeed. We are
besetwith
mortality
all
around
us;
the
seeds
of
disease
and dissolution are working within
us
from
our
very
birth and cradle, ever
since
sin
entered
into our natures and
we
should ever
be in
readiness
to
remove
hence, since
we
are never secure from the
sum-
rlions
of
heaven, the stroke
of
death, and the demands
of
the
grave.
There
was
a
lovely boy, the son
of
the Shunamite,
who was
given
to
his
mother
in
a miraculous
way,
and
when
he
was
in the field 4mong
the reapers,
he
cried out,
"My
head, my
,head;"
he was
carried
home
immedi-
ately, and,
ina
few
hours, died
in his
mother's
boson,
Kings
iv:
'
18,19.
Who
would have imagined,
that
head-
ache should
have been death;
and
that
in
so
short a time
too? This
is
almost
the
case which
we
lament
at
pre-
sent;
the head-ache
was
sent
but
a
few
days before,
nor
was
the
pain
very intense,
nor the appearance danger-
ous,
yet
it
became
the
fatal,
though
unexpected, fore
-
runner of
death.
This providence/
is
an awful warning-piece
to all
her
young acquaintance,
to
be
ready for
a
sudden
removal;
for
she was
of
a healthy
make, and seemed to
stand
at
as
great
distance
from the gates
of
death,
as
any
of
you
;
.But
the firmest constitution
of
human
nature
is
born
with
death
in
it.
From every
age,
and
every
spot
of
ground,
and
every
moment
of
time,
there are short and
sudden,
ways,of descent
to
the
grave.
Trap-
doors,
if
I
may
use
so low
a
metaphor,
are
always
under
us,
and
a
thousand
unseen avenues
to the
regions
of
the dead. A malig-
nant
fever strikes the
strongest nature,
With
a
mortal
blast,
at
the command
of
the
great author
and disposer
of
life.
My youngest
hearers
may
be
called
away
from
the .earth
by
then
next
pain
that
seizes them.
Nothing
but
religion,
early religion and sincere
godliness, can