DISCOURSE II. 77 souls to life by4the same living Spirit, which shall quicken their mortal bodies, and raise them from the grave ; Rom. viii. 9, 11, 13. 2 Cor. iii. 3. which Spirit he bath received from the Fa- ther; John iii. 34. And on this account we are to seek the vital influences of this grace from heaven by constant and im- portunate prayer. Yet in my text as well as in other scriptures, awaking out of sleep, and watching unto righteousness, is re- presented as our duty, and the are to exert all our natural powers with holy fervency for this end, while our daily petitions draw down from heaven the promised aids of grace. Our dili- gence in duty, and our dependence on the divine power and mercy, are happily and effectually joined in the command of our Saviour on this very occasion in one of his parables ; Mark xiii. 33. Watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is, that the Lord will come. And again, chapter xiv. 38. Watch and pray, that. ye enter not into temptation. Trust not in your own strength and sufficiency, for the glorious change to be wrought in your sinful hearts, and yet neglect. not your own labours and rest- less endeavours under a pretence, that it is God's work, and not yours. Awake, thole that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ'shall give theelight; Eph. v. 14. Nor should frail dying creatures in their youngest years, delay this work one day, nor one hour, since the consequences of being found asleep when Christ calls, are terrible indeed. We are beset with mortality all around us; the seeds of disease and dissolution are working within us from our very birth and cradle,, ever since sin entered into our natures ; and we should ever be in readiness to remove hence, since we are never secure from the summons of heaven, the stroke of death, and the demands of the grave. There was a lovely boy, the son of the Shunamite, who was given to his mother in a miraculous way, and when he was in the field among the reapers, he cried out, My head, my head; he was carried home immediately, and in a few hours, died in his mother's bosom; 2 Kings iv. 18. Who would have imagined, that head -ache should have been death, and that in so short a time too ? This is almost the case which we lament at present; the head -ache was sent but a few days before, nor was the pain very intense, nor the appearance dangerous, yet it became the fatal, though unexpected fore- runner of death. This providence is an awful warning -piece to all her young acquaintance, to be ready for a sudden removal ;. for she was of a healthy make, and seemed to stand at as great distance from the gates of death as any of you But the firmest constitution of human nature is born with death in it. From every age, and every spot of ground, and every moment of time, there are short and sudden ways of descent to the grave. Trap doors, if I may
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