508 THE UNLAWFULNESS OF SELF- MURDER. your face now set heaven-ward? And are you arrived within the hopes and confines of heaven ? Have you any comfortable or settled expectation of that inheritance of.tbe saints in light? Your mind perhaps was vain and carnal, and made the pleasures, the profits, or the honours of this life the objects of your chief pursuit, and your only happiness; how stands the temper of your spirit now? Is it refined ? is it exalted to pursue diviner in- terests and hopes ? Or think youthat God rescuedyou from the grave, for no other purpose, but to eat anddrink and live a brutal life, to grovel in the mire still, and to feed upon the dust,. or follow after the wind ? God has withheld you from executing the devil's sentenceof deathon yourself? And are you content still to live under the guilt and condemnation of sin in the sight of God, and wait only till his providence execute his divine sentence upon you ? Is this, O sinner,- is this all the design for which thy reprieve was given thee? Was it not that thou mightest seek a complete pardon, and 'obtain a right to heaven through the grace of the gospel ? And wilt thou.go on to abuse the compassion and the long-suffering of God ? Shall that soul perish at last, which has had so loud a warning, and which Has been rescued from the very jaws of the pit by the hand of divine love ? Ors it may be, thou hadst made a profession of religion long before the season of thy temptation, and thou hadst back- slidden from. the Lord, days without number. His hand has saved thee from present death ;. but is thy soul recovered from its great backslidings ? One would think it should be a very awakening hour, when thou wert just within the verge of hell, and plucked as abrand out of the burning : Art thou returned to thy old drowsiness, and fallen asleep again in careless security ? Howwilt thou lift up thy face before God when he shall make at last a solemn enquiry; " What hast thou done with that life, with those months, with those years? What hast thou done with those sermons and those seasons of grace that I gave thee since the day of thy rescue from thy own bloody purposes, and from the assaults of the temper ?" V. Search into the causes and springs of this temptation which hash assaulted you, and watch against all those things that have had any tendency toward it or any share in it. Search into your own heart, see what secret seeds of iniqui- ty lurk there which may.have grown up to this dangerous height. Read over the second and third advices of the foregoing section, see if any of the vicious practices, or the criminal neglects there mentioned, have been indulged by you, which might lay a foun- dation for this mischief. These are so many avenues which the adversary hath found to insinuate his wicked suggestions, and convey them to your heart : Watch against all these avenues of
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=