and thoughtless creatures! that have grown old in slumber, and worn out their whole life in iniquity! surely it is time for you to hear the voice of the Son of God in the gospel, and accept of his salvation : behold the Judge is at the door, he comes speedily and he will not tarry, his herald of death is just at hand: are you willing he should seize you in a deadly sleep, and send you into eternal sorrows?

And let aged Christians bestir themselves and awake from their slothful and secure frames of spirit, let them look upward to the crown that is not far off, to the prize that is almost within reach whatsoever your hand or heart find to do for God, do it with all your zeal and might let your loins be girt about, and your natural powers active in his service, let your lamp of profession be bright and burning, that when Jesus comes ye may receive him with joy.

(5.) And are there any of you that are under decays of grace and piety, that are labouring and wrestling with strong corruptions, or in actual conflict with repeated temptations which too often prevail over you, it becomes you to hear the watch-word which Christ often gives to his churches under such circumstances: make haste and awake unto holiness, be watchful and strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die; hold fast what thou hast received; remember thy first affection and zeal and repent and mourn for what thou hast lost, lest I come upon thee as a theif, and thou shalt not know the hour: remember whence thou art fallen and repent, and do thy first works, for thou hast lost thy first love: have a care of dangerous lukewarmness and indifference in the things of religion. This is the very temper of a sleepy declining Christian, while he dreams he is rich and has great attainments take heed lest presuming upon thy riches and thy self-sufficiency, thou shouldest be found"wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Keep your souls awake hourly, and be upon your guard against every adver

be seized away in

sary and every defilement, lest ye the commission of some sin, or in the compliance with some foul temptation. The drowsy soldier is liable to be led captive and to die in fetters, and groan heavily in death. But blessed is the watchful Christian; he shall be found amongst the overcomers, and shall partake of the rich variety of divine favours which are contained in the epistles to the seven churches. Rev. ii. and iii.

Though the greatest part of a former discourse has been describing the blessedness of a watchful Christian in the hour of death, and in this I have set before you the sad consequences that attend sleepers (both which are powerful preservatives against drowsiness) yet at the conclusion of this sermon give me leave to add a few more motives to the duty of watchfulness, for we cannot be too well guarded against the danger of spiritual sloth and security.

Motive 1. Our natures at best in the present" state are too much inclined to slumber. We are too ready to fall asleep hourly all the saints on earth, even the most lively and active of them, are not out of danger while they carry this flesh and blood about them. Indeed the best of Christians here below dwell but as it were in twilight, and in some sense they may be described as persons between sleeping and waking in comparison of the world of spirits. We behold divine things here but darkly, and exert our spiritual faculties but in a feeble manner: it is only in the other world that we are broad awake, and in the perfect and unrestrained exercise of our vital powers; there only the complete life and vigour of a saint appears. In such a drowsy state then and in this dusky hour we cannot be too diligent in rousing ourselves lest we sink down into dangerous slumbers. Besides, if we profess to be children of the light and of

the day, and growing up to a brighter immortality, let us not sleep as do others who are the sons and daughters of night and darkness. 1 Thess. v. 4, 5.

Motive 2. Almost every thing around us in this world of sense and sin tends to lull us asleep again as soon as we begin to be awake. The busy or the pleasant scenes of this temporal life are ever calling away our thoughts from eternal things, they conceal from us the spiritual world, and close our eyes to God and things divine and heavenly. If the eye of the soul were but open to invisible things, what lively Christians should we be? but either the winds of worldly cares rock us to sleep, or the charm of worldly pleasures sooth us into deceitful slumbers. We are too ready to indulge earthly delights, and while we dream of pleasure in the creatures we lose or at least abate our delights in God. Even the lawful satisfactions of flesh and sense, and the enticing objects round about us may attach our hearts so fast to them as to draw us down into a bed of carnal ease, till we fall asleep in spiritual security, and forget that we are made for heaven and that our hope and our home is on high.

Motive 3. Many thousands have been found sleeping at the call of Christ: some perhaps in a profound and deadly sleep, and others in an hour of dangerous slumber many an acquaintance of ours has gone down to the grave when neither they nor we thought of their dying at such a season. But as thoughtless as they were, they were never the further from the point of death and we shudder with horror when we think what is become of their souls.

While we are young we are ready to please ourselves with the enjoyments of life, and flatter our hopes with a long succession of them. We We suppose death to be at the distance of fifty or threescore miles; three score years and ten is the appointed

period but alas! how few are there whose hopes are fulfilled, or whose life is extended to those dimensions? Perhaps the messenger of death is within a furlong of our dwelling; a few more steps onward and he smites us down to the dust.

There are some beautiful verses which I have read perhaps thirty years ago, wherein the ingenious author describes the different stages of human life under the image of a fair prospect or landscape, and death is placed by mistaken mortals afar off beyond them all. Since the lines return now upon my remembrance I will repeat them here with some mall alteration. They are as follow.

Life and the scenes that round it rise,
Share in the same uncertainties.
Yet still we hug ourselves with vain presage
Of future days serene and long,

Of pleasures fresh and ever strong,
An active youth and slow decling age.

Like a fair prospect still we nake
Things future pleasing forms to take:
First verdant meads arise and flow'ry ficids;
Cool groves and shady copses here,

There brooks and winding streams appear,
While change of objects still new pleasures yields.

Farther fine castles court the eye,
There wealth and honours we espy;
Beyond, a huddled mixture fills the stage,
"Till the remoter distance shrouds

The plains with hills, those hills with clouds,
There we place death behind old shiverining age.

When death alas, perhaps too nigh,
In the next hedge doth sculking lie,
There plants his engines, thence let fly his dart,
Which while we ramble without fear,
Will stop us in our full career,

And force us from our airy dreams to part.

How fond and vain are our imaginations, when we have seen others called away on a sudden from the early scenes of life, to promise ourselves a long continuance here! We have the same feeble bodies, the same tabernacles of clay that others have, and we are liable to many of the same accidents or casualties the same killing diseases are at work in our natures, and why should we imagine or presume that others should go so much before us?

And if we inquire of ourselves as to character or merit, or inoral circumstances of any kind, and compare ourselves with those that are gone before, what foundation have we to promise ourselves a longer continuance here? Have we not the same sins or greater to provoke God? Are we more useful in the world than they, and do more service for his name? May not God summon us off the stage of life on a sudden as well as others? What are we better than they? Are we not as much under the sovereign disposal of the great God as any of our acquaintance who have been seized in the flower and prime of life, and called away in an unexpected hour? And what power have we to resist the seizure, or what promise to hope that God will delay longer? Let us then no more deceive ourselves with vain imaginations, but cach of us awake and bestir our selves as though we were the next persons to be called away from this assembly, and to appear next before the Lord.

Motive 4. When we are awake we are not only fitter for the coming of our Lord to call us away by death, and fitter for his appearance to the great Judgment, but we are better prepared also to attend him in every call to present duty, and more ready to meet his appearance in every providence. It is the Christian soldier who is ever awake and on his guard that is only fit for every sudden appointment to new stations and services, he is more prepared