CONSIDERATION VI
The death of the sinner
" Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief." Ezek. vii. 25, 26.
First Point.
IT is now that sinners try, as far as they can, to drive away the memory and the thought of death, and thus to find peace, although they never will do so, by leading a life of sin; but when in the agonies of death, they must enter into eternity when " destruction cometh and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none;" then they will try to fly from the stings of their troubled consciences; they will seek peace, but what peace can a soul find which is laden with sin, which bites it like so many vipers? What peace, knowing that in so short a time it will have to appear before Jesus Christ the Judge, whose law and friendship, until that moment, it has esteemed of so little worth? "Mischief shall come upon mischief." The intelligence that the sinner has just received, that he is dying, the thought that he must bid farewell to everything in this world, the stings of a troubled conscience, the time that is for ever lost, the time that he is now in want of, the severity of the Divine Judge, the miserable eternity which awaits all sinners the thought of all these things will come upon him in terrible confusion, which will greatly trouble his mind and increase his apprehensions, and thus confused, and being filled with fear, the soul of the dying man will pass into the other life. Abraham, to whom great praise is due,
