Ans. 3. Aiid withal, labour for abundance of the Spirit of God. For what makes men sleepy, and drowsy? The want of spirits. We are dull, and overloaden with gross humours, whereby the strength sinks and fails. Christians should know, that there is a necessity, if they will keep them- selves waking, to keep themselves spiritual. Pray for the Spirit above all things. It is the life of our life, the soul of our soul. What is the body without the soul, or the soul without the Spirit of God? Even a dead lump. And let us keep ourselves in such good ways, as we may expect the presence of the Spirit to be about us, which will keep us awake.
Ans. 4. We must keep ourselves in as much light as may be. For aU sleepiness comes with darkness. Let us keep our souls in a perpetual light. When any doubt or dark thought ariseth, upon yielding thereunto comes a sleepy temper. Sleepiness in the affections ariseth from darkness of judgment. The more we laboiu: to increase our knowledge, and the more the spiritual light and beams of it shine in at our windows, the better it will be for us, and the more shall we be able to keep awake. What makes men in their corruptions to avoid the ministry of the word, or anything that may awake their consciences ? It is the desire they have to sleep. They know, the more they know, the more they must practise, or else they must have a galled conscience. They see religion will not stand with their ends. Rich they must be, and great they will be ; but if they suffer the hght to grow upon them, that will tell them they must not rise, and be great, by these and such courses. A gracious heart will be desirous of spiritual knowledge especially, aaid not care how near the word comes ; because they in- geniously* and freely desire to be spiritually better. They make all things in the world yield to the inward man. They desire to know their own corruptions and evils more and more. And therefore love the light ' as children of the light, and of the day,' 1 Thess. v. 5. Sleep is a work of darkness. Men therefore of dark and drowsy hearts desire darkness, for that very end that their consciences may sleep.
Ans. 5. Labour to preserve the soid in the fear of God: because fear is a
waking affection, yea, one of the wakefullest. For, naturally we are more
moved with dangers, than stirred with hopes. Therefore, that affection,
that is most conversant about danger, is the most rousing and waking
* That is, ' iugenuously.' — G.
Cant. V. 2.] ' mt heabt waketh.' 53
affection. Preserve therefore the fear of God by all means. It is one character of a Christian, who, when he hath lost almost all grace, to his feeling, yet the fear of God is always left with him. He fears sin, and the reward of it, and therefore God makes that awe the bond of the new covenant. ' I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall never depart from me,' Jer. xxxii. 39. One Christian is better than another, by how much more he wakes, and fears more than another. Of all Christians, mark those are most gracious, spkitual, and heavenly, that are the most awful and careful of their speeches, courses, and demeanours ; tender even of offending God in httle things. You shall not have light and common oaths come from them, nor unsavoury speeches. Sometimes a good Christian may in a state of sleepiness be faulty some way. But he grows in the knowledge of •he greatness of God, and the experience of his own infirmities, as he grows in the sense of the love of God. He is afraid to lose that sweet communion any way, or to grieve the Spirit of God. Therefore, always as a man grows in grace, he grows in awfulness, and in jealousy of his o^\'n conaiptions. Therefore let us preserve by all means this awful affection, the fear of God. Let us then often search the state of our own souls ; our going backward or forward ; how it is between God and our souls ; how fit we are to die, and to suffer ; how fit for the times that may befall us. Let us examine the state of our own souls, which -vsall preserve us in a waking estate ; especially examine ourselves in regard of the sins of the place, and the times where we live ; of the sins of our ovm. inclination, how we stand affected and biassed in all those respects, and see how jealous we are of dangers in this kind. Those that will keep waking souls, must consider the danger of the place where they hve, and the times ; what sins reign, what sins such a company as they converse with, are subject unto, and their own weakness to be led away with such temptations. This jealousy is a branch of that fear that we spake of before, arising from the searching of our own hearts, and dis- positions. It is a notable means to keep us awake, when we keep our hearts in fear of such sins as either by calling, custom, company, or the time we live in, or by our own disposition, we are most prone to.