406 CHRISTIAN MORALITY. work. This active sort of idleness is much harder to be cured than that of the slow and stupid kind ; and you see it belongs to the poor as well as the rich ; though it is amatter of disreputation and infamy to both. Persons of this unhappy conduct, whether of high or low degree; are in great danger of trifling in the most sacred and divine concernments, as well as in common life. They some- times manage their spiritual and immortal affairs in the same dila- tory manner, but with more dreadful and fatal consequence. They put off repentance from day to day, and delay their solemn transactions with God, till sickness seizes them, or till death ap- proaches : 'fhenwhat hurry of spirit! What dreadful confusion ofsoul ! 'What tumults and terrors overwhelm them ! And it is well if the matters of their salvation be not unfinished at thelast hour, and themselves made miserable to all eternity, because they trifled away lifeand time. . A second enemy to this regular conduct,of life, and which . indeed is derived. from the former, is this, an inversion of the order of nature, and a change of the seasons which God bath ap- pointed for business and rest. I confess this is not now-a-daysa matterof ill report in itself, however contrary it be to the laws of nature and the creation : But it is attended with many irregu- larities, and sometimes with infamous practices too : And there- fore I would spend one page to give it au ill name ; and tobring it into just discredit. God has made every thülg beautiful in its season; Eccl. iii. 11. The sun ariseth ; andman goethforth to his workuntil the evening; Ps. 22, 23. It is'more natural and healthful to pursue the concerns of life, as much as possible by day-light. Midnight studies are prejudicial to nature : A painful experience calls me to repent of the faults Only younger years, and there are many before me have had the saine call to:repentance. Wear- ingout the lightsome hours in sleep, is an unnatural waste of sun-beams. There is no light SC/friendly toanimal natureas that of the sun. Midnight assemilies, festivals, and entertainments, exhaust the spirits, and make a needless profusion of the necessa- ries of life They carry a very ill appearance with them, even where no wickedness is indulged, theyare practices of evil report, and deserve censure and shame. It is no honour to our whole nation, that we have learned the fashion of doing nothing in the morning ; among persons of mode the day pften begins at noon : The hours of business are grown much later, among us than our forefathers could bear. They knew the worth of day-light. Iie some things indeed we are bound to comply with custom, or we must forsake the World.: for a few can never stem the general tide, or reform a degenerate
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