3. In sleep, phantasy ruleth, and dreams in phantasy. Men in sleep dream of false good, and forget true danger.
Many cherish golden dreams ; dream of meat, and when they awake, their soul is empty, Isa. xxix. 8. Vain hopes are the dreams of waking men, as vain di'eams are all the waking of sleeping and carnal men, whose life is but a dream.
In sleep, there is no exercise of senses or motion. As then, men are not sensible of good or ill, they move neither to good or ill. Motion foUoweth sensibleness. What good we are not sensible of, we move not unto. Hence sleep is of kin to death, for the time, depriving us of the use of all senses ; and a secui-e professor in appearance differs little fr'om a dead pro- fessor. Both of them are unactive in good ; and what they do, they do it without delight, in an uncomelj' and unacceptable manner, unbeseeming the state of a Christian. It is all one to have no senses, and not to use them. We may say of men in this sleepy temper, as the Scriptui-e speaks of idols, ' they have eyes and see not, ears and hear not,' &c., Ps. cxv. 5.
So hkewise they are alike in danger. In sleep, the preciousest thing men carr}' about them is taken away without resistance ; and they are ready to let loose what they held fast before, were it never so rich a jewel. And it is so in spii'itual sleepiness. Men suffer the profession of the truth to be wrung from them, without much withstanding ; and ^vith letting fall their watch, let fall likewise, if not their grace, yet the exercise of their graces, and are in danger to be robbed of all.
42 BOWELS OPENED. [SebMON III.
There is no danger but a man in sleep is fair for, and exposed unto. Sisera was slain asleep, Jud. v. 26, and Ishboshetli at noonday, 2 Sam. iv. 7; and there is no temptation, no sin, no judgment, but a secure, drowsy Christian is open for ; which is the ground of so oft enforcing watchfulness by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures. As spiritual deadness of spirit is a cause of other sin, so likewise it is a punishment of them. God poureth a spirit of ' dead sleep upon men, and closeth up their eyes,' Isa, xxix. 10, till some heavy judgment falleth upon them ; and how many carnal men never awake in this world, till they awake in hell ! No wonder there- fore that Satan labours to cast men into a dead sleep all that he can ; and deludes them, with dreams of a false good, that their est,ate is good, and like so to continue; that to-morrow shall be as to-day; that no danger is near, though God's wrath hangeth over their head, ready to be revealed from heaven.
Thus we see how the resemblance holds. Some apply this to Constan- tino's time, about three hundred years after Christ, when the church upon peace and plenty grew secure, and suffei-ed ecclesiastical abuses to creep in. Religion begat plenty, and the daughter devoured the mother. This made the writers of the ecclesiastical stories, to question whether the church hath more hurt by open persecution or peace, when one Christian undermineth and rageth against another.* Human inventions were so multiplied, that not long after, in Augustine's time, he complained that the condition of the Jews was more tolerable than theirs ; f for though the Jews were under burdens, yet they were such as were imposed by God himself, and not human presumjDtions-. But Gerson many hundred years after increaseth his complaint. I If, 0 Augustine, thou saidst thus in thy time, what wouldst thou have said if thou hadst lived now, when men, as a toy§ taketh them in the head, will multiply burdens ? And he was not afraid to say, that the number of human Constitutions was such, that if they were observed in rigour, the greatest part of the church would be damned. Thus, whilst the husbandmen slept, the envious man Satan slept not, but sew|| his tares. Thus popery grew up by degrees, till it overspread the church, whilst the watchmen that should have kept others awake, fell asleep themselves. And thus we answer the papists, when they quarrel with us about the beginning of their errors. They ask of us, when such and such an heresy began ? We answer, that those that should have observed them, were asleep. Popery is a mystery that crept into the church by degrees, under glorious pre- tences.^ Their errors had modest beginnings. Worshipping of images arose from reserving the pictures of friends, and after that were brought into the church. Invocation of saints arose from some of the fathers' figurative turning of their speech to some that were dead. Transubstantia- tion had rise from some transcendent, unwary phrases of the fathers. The papacy itself, from some titles of the Romish Church and bishop. Nothing in popery so gross, but had some small beginnings, which being neglected by those that should have watched over the church, grew at length unsuffer- able. No wonder if the papists be cast into a dead sleep ; they have drunk too deep of the whore's cup. They that worship images are, as the Scrip-