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3'76
SURPRLZE
IN DEATH.
[DISC.
III.
we
have often found these violent emotions
of
consci-
ence
vanish again,
if
the sinner has
happened
to
recover
his
health
:
They
seem to be
merely
the
wild
perplexities
and
struggles
of
nature
averse tó misery,
rather than
averse
to
sin:
Their
renouncing their former
lusts
on
the
very
borders
of
hell and
destruction,
is
more like
the
vehement
and
irregular
efforts
of
a drowning creature,
.constrained
to
let
go
a
most,
beloved object,
and
taking
eager
hold
of
any plank for
safety,
rather
than the
calm,
and
reasonable, and voluntary
designs
of
a mariner,
who
forsakes
his
earthly
joys,
ventures himself
in
a
ship
that
is
offered
him,
and
sets sail
for
the heavenly
country.
I
never
will
pronounce
such efforts and
endeavours de-
sperate, lest
I
limit the grace
of
God,
which
is
unbound-
ed
;
but
I
can
give
very
little encouragement
for
hope
to
an hour
or
two
of
vehement and tumultuous penitence,
on the
very
brink
of
damnation.
Judas
repented, but
his
agonies
of
soul
hurried
him
to hasten
his own
death,
"that
he
might
go
to
his own
place:"
And
there
is
abun-
dance
of
such kind
of
repenting,
in
every
corner
of
hell
;
that
is
a deep and dréadful
pit,
whence there
is
no
re-
demption, though there are
millions
of
such
sort of pe-
nitents; it
is
a strong
and
dark
prison, where
no
beam
of
comfort ever
shines,
where
bitter
anguish and móurn-
ing for
sins
past,
is
no
evangelical
repentance,
but
ever-
lasting and hopeless sorrow.
II.
"Those that
are
found sleeping
at
the
hour
of
death, are carried
away
at
once from
all
their
sensual
pursuits and
enjoyments, which were
their
chosen
por-
tion, and their highest happiness."
At
once they
lose
all
their
golden dreams, and
their chief
good
is,
as
it
were,
snatched
away
from them
at
once,
and for
ever.
They
stand
on
slippery
places, they
are brought
to
destruction
in
a moment, and
all
their
former joys are
like
a
dream, when one awaketh, and
finds
himself
be-
set
round
with
terrors,"
Ps.
lxxiii.
18
-20.
Are there
any
of
you,
that
are
pleasing yourselves here
in
the
days
of youth
and
vanity,
and indulge your dreams
of
pleasure
in
the sleep
of spiritual
death, think
of
the
approaching
moment, when the
death
of nature
shall
dissolve
your
sleep,
and
scatter
all
the
delusive images
of
sinful.
joy.
The separation
from the body
of
flesh is
a
fearful'
shock given to
the
soul,
that
makes
it
awake
in-