* Theodoret, lib. 5.
t Augustine, Epist. ad Januar. cxix. Toleratilior Judseorum conditio quam nostra.
X Si tuo temporo li£ec dicebas (0 sapiens Augustine) quid nostra tempestate dixisses ? Si tenerentur in sue rigore, maxima pars Ecclesia) damnaretur. Gerson de vit. spiritual. g That is, ' trifle.' — G.
U That is, ' sowed.'— G. % See Memoir of Sibbes, vol. i. p. Ixv.
Cant. V. 1.] i sleep.* 43
tui-e saith, ' like unto them, they have eyes and see not,' &c., Ps. cxv. 5. They cannot discern of their errors, though they be never so ridiculous and senseless, as prayer in an unknown tongue, and such Uke.
And upon this state of the church let us add this caution.
A Caution. If the best men be so prone to sleep, then ice cannot safehj at all times build upon their judgment. The fathers of the church were not always awake. There be few of them, but in some things we may appeal from themselves sleeping, to themselves waking. The best, having some darkness left in their understandings, and some lusts unsubdued in their affections, may write and speak sometimes out of the worst part and pxinciple that is in them, as well as out of the best, when they keep not close to the rule.
When our adversaries press us with the authority of fathers, we appeal to them, where they speak advisedly and of purpose.* When they were not awaked by heretics, they speak sometimes unworthily, and give advan- tages to heretics that followed. It is the manner of our adversaries to make the unwarrantable practice of the ancienter time a rule of their prac- tice, and the doubtful opinions of the ancients their own grand tenets ; wherein in both they deal unsafely for themselves, and injuriously towards us, when we upon grounds in some things dissent; which liberty (oft when they should not) they will take to themselves.
But howsoever this sleepy condition agreeth to the former times of the church, yet I wish there were not cause to apply it to ourselves, in this latter age of the church, wherein many of the ancient heresies are revived ; and besides, the evils that accompany long peace take hold of us, and will prevail too far, if we do not rouse up ourselves. The church is in the commonwealth, and usually they flourish and fall together. When there is a sleep of the church, for the most part there is a sleep of the state. A civil sleep is, when in grounds of danger there is no apprehension of dan- ger ; and this sleep is a punishment of spiritual sleep, when with Ephraim a state hath * grey hairs, and knoweth it not,' Hos. vii. 9 ; when judgments abroad will not awake men. WTien noise and pinching will not awake, the sleep must needs be deep. The whole world almost is in combustion round about us ; and many countries thought themselves as safe, a little before their troubles, as we now think ourselves. If fear of outward dan- gers will not awake, then spiritual dangers will not, as being more secret, and not obvious to sense. No wonder, then, if few wiU beUeve our report of the fearful condition of wicked men in the world to come. A man may be startled and awaked with outward dangers that is spiritually sottish, but he that is careless of outward danger, will be regardless of what we say in spiritual dangers. The fear of danger may be the greater, when, as it was amongst the Jews, those that should be watchful themselves, and awake others, instead of awaking, rock the cradle, and cry 'Peace, peace, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,'Jer. vii. 4. Yet we must never forget to be mindful, with thankfalness, for peace and the gospel of peace, which yet by God's blessing we enjoy, always suspecting the readiness of nature to grow secure under the abundance of favours, and so to bless ourselves in that condition.
Signs of a sleepy state. 1. Now we know that sleep is creeping upon us, by comparing our present condition with our former, when we were in a more wakeful frame, when the graces of God's Spirit were in exercise in us. If we difler from that we were, then aU is not well.
* Patres in maximia sunt nostri, in multis varii, in minimis vestri. — Wh[^itaker'\.
44 BOWELS OPENED. [SeRMON III.
2. Compare ourselves again with that state and frame that a Christian should be in ; for sometimes a Christian goes under an uncomfortable condition all the days of his life, so that he is not fit to make himself his pattern. The true rule is, that description that is in the word, of a waking and living Christian. What should a man be, take him at the best, the varying from that is a sleepy estate. As, for instance, a Christian should walk ' in the comfort of the Holy Ghost,' Acts ix. 31, live and walk by faith ; he should depend upon God, and resist temptations. Faith should work by love, and love to ourselves should move us to honour ourselves as members of Christ, to disdain to defile ourselves by sin. Our hope, if it be waking, will purge us, and make us suitable to the condition we hope for in heaven, and the company we hope to have fellowship with there.