Use. *Oh ! take heed of this evil : Mark xiii. 26, ' Watch, lest the Lord cometh suddenly, and he find you sleeping.' Would you have Christ come and find you in this case ?
1. Some are wholly in a state of spiritual sleep. To them the Lord speakcth, Eph. v. 14, ' Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' And of such the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, ' Awake to righteousness, and sin not ; for some have not the knowledge of God : I speak this to your shame.' It is all reason, and more than time, that you should thoroughly rouse up yourselves from the condition of sin wherein you have gone. It is a shame such should be among Christians, such as snort still upon the bed of security, when the light of the gospel shineth round about them. Oh ! when God calleth, ' Awake, and rise from the dead ; ' if not, God may punish you by your own sin. One of his heaviest judgments is a ' spirit of slumber, and deep sleep,' Ptom. xi. 8. And then what will the end of it be ? You may sleep, but ' your damnation sleepeth not,' 2 Peter ii. 3. Certainly we should commiserate the case of such, especially if they be related to us ; and seek to awaken them from the sleep of sin, that they may be brought home to Christ. Oh ! poor careless creatures ! they fear not God, nor think of his wrath, nor make preparation to stand before the Son of man at his coming.
2. There are others apt to slumber now and then, though for the main they have ' chosen the better part.' To these the apostle speaks, 1 Thes. v. 6, ' Therefore let us not sleep, as do others ; but let us watch and be sober.' There is great need. Our adversary watcheth ; the devil is observing all our motions and postures ; if we fall asleep, we arc exposed as a prey to him. There are many that mind our spiritual harm. If we had no enemy without, there is hostis domesti- cus, a bosom enemy ; and we are prone as others to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Therefore you may not sleep as do others. You have another spirit in you, and if you are God's children you have other obligations : Kom. xiii. 11, ' It is high time to awake out of sleep ; for your salvation is nearer than when you first believed.
VeR. 5.] SERMONS UPON MATTHEW XXV. 357
When you first gave your names to Christ, you thought no labour too much, no pains too great. How vigilant and diligent then ! and will you sleep now ? Your course beginneth to draw to an end, and you are almost ready to set sail for the other world, that you may meet with Christ. Oh ! now you have shaken off the sleep of sin, shake off the sleep of sloth too. Shall we be drowsy and cold at last ?
First, I shall give you the signs of this sin.
Secondly, Motives against it.
Thirdly, Directions to avoid it.
First, The signs.
1. Senselessness, in not discerning and weighing the things that befall us, good or evil. An instance of the one we have, Hosea vii. 8, ' For she did not know that I gave her corn and wine and oil.' The Lord is very liberal to us, yet little notice is taken of it. An instance of the other we have, Isa. xlii. 25, ' Yet he laid it not to heart/ In mercies we neither consider their author, nor their end, nor their caiise. Their author : We are like swine, that eat the acorns, but never look up to the oak from whence they fall. It is said of the church, ' She hath •dove's eyes ;' they peck and look upward. We should see God in every mercy. A drowsy inattentive soul heedeth it not, but is swallowed up in present delights and enjoyments, and looketh no further. It is our privilege above the beasts to know the first cause. Other creatures live upon God, but are not capable of knowing God. Idolatry and profaneness had never crept into the world if men had kept up the sense of God's bounty. Some never regard the end of mercies, which is to draw in our hearts to God ; therefore called the ' cords of a man,' Hosea vi. 4, being so many bonds and ties upon us: What honour hath been done to God for this and that mercy ? I allude to that in Esther vi. 3. See how David reasoneth, 2 Sam. vii. 2, ' I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God within curtains.' When the heart is urging to duty upon this score : God hath been good to me, given me food and raiment, and plentiful provision for the comfort of this life ; what have I done for God ? Not only the impenitent abuse mercy, Kom. ii. 4, but David lost his awe of God, because he had not a thankful sense of the mercies of God, 2 Sam. xii. 7, 8. So for cor- rective providences. The body is a tender part with most men ; though they are sensible of the smart of the lash, yet they do not consider the hand that strikelh, nor the deserving procuring cause ; they do not look upward nor inward; they do not see the hand of God in it: Isa. xxvi. 11, 'When his hand is lifted up they will not see;' look upon it as a chance, 1 Sam. vi. 4. Job had explicit thoughts of God : Job i. 23, ' The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken.' Nor the cause, Lam. iii. 39. ' Wherefore doth a living man complain? a man for the punishment of his sins ? ' If sickness cometh, if a relation be taken away, if an estate blasted, a waking conscience looketh to the cause : ' For this cause many are sick, and many are fallen asleep/ 1 Cor. xi. We should see the mind of God in his rod. When the Israelites fled before the men of Ai, Joshua looketh out for the troubler. So the children of God search for the sin that is the cause of their trouble.