389 / 674
ISISC.
Ir.3
THE WATCHFUL
CHRISTIAN
LYING`
IN PEACE.
360
give you
hope in
youthful death, or
leave
a
fragrant
savour
on
your
name,
or
memory,
among those
that
survive.
Reflection
II.
If
such blessedness,
as
I
have
described,
belong
to
every
watchful christian
at
the
hour of
death,
then it
may
not
be
improper
hereto
take
notice
of
"some
peculiar
advantages, which
attend
those
who
shake off
the
deadly sleep
of
sin in
their younger
years,
and are
awake
early to
God
and religion."
1.
They
have much fewer
sins to
mourn
over on
a
death
-bed;
and
they
prevent
much
bitter repentance for
youthful
iniquities. Holy
Job
was
a
man
of
distinguish-
ed piety,
and
God
himself
pronounces
of
him,
that
there
was
none
like him in all
the
earth,"
Job
i.
8.
but
it
is
a question,
whether
his
most early
days were
devoted
to God, and whether
he was so
watchful
over
his
be-
haviour
in
that
dangerous season
of
life, for he
makes a
heavy complaint
in
his
addresses
to
God, Job
xiii. 26.
Thou
writest
bitter
things
against
me,
and makest
me
to
possess
the iniquities
of
my
youth."
The
sooner
we
begin
to be awake
'to
holiness,
the more
of
these
follies
and
sorrows
are prevented
:
Happy
those, who have
the
fewest
of
them, to
embitter their
following
lives,
or make
a
death
-bed
painful!
.
Young
persons have
fewer
attachments
to
the
world, and the
persons and things
of
it,
which
are round
about
them, and
are more ready
to
part
with
it
when
their
souls are
united
to
God by
an
early faith
and
love.
They
have
not
,yet
entered into
so
numerous
engage
-
ments
of
life,
nor
dwelt long
enough
here
to
have
their
hearts
grown
so
fast
on to
creatures,
which
usually make
the parting- stroke
so
full
of
anguish
and smarting sor-
row. A child
can much more easily ascend
to
heaven,
and
leave
a
parent
behind,
without
that
tender and
painful
solicitude, which
a,
dying
parent
has for the wel-
fare
of
a
surviving
child.
The surrender of
all
mortal
interest,
at
the call
of
God,
is
much more easy
when
our
souls
are
'not
tied to them
by
so
many strings,
nor
united
by
so
many
of
the softer endearments of nature,
and where grace
has
taught
us
to practise an early
wean-
ing
from
all
temporal
comforts,
and a
little
loosened
our
hearts
from them
by
the faith
of
things
eternal.
VOL.
I1.
g