3J0 SVRPRIZE IN DEATH. :EliISé.fff. this sermon,. give me leave to add a few more motives to the duty of watchfulness, for we cannot be too well guarded against the danger of spiritual sloth and security. Motive I. " Our natures at best, in the present state, are too much inclined to slumber." We are too ready to fall asleep hourly : All the saints on earth, even the most lively and active of them, are not out oA danger, while they carry this flesh and blood about them. Indeed the best of christians here below dwell but as it were, in twi- light, and, in some sense, they may be described as per- sons between sleeping and waking, in comparison of the world of spirits. We behold divine things here but darkly, and exert our spiritual faculties but in a feeble manner : It is only in the other world that we are broad awake, and in the perfect and unrestrained exercise of our vital powers ; there only the complete life and vigour of a saint appears. In such a drowsy state then, and in this dusky hour, we cannot be too diligent in rousing ourselves, lest we sink down into dangerous slumbers. Besides, if we profess to be children of the light, and of the day, and growingup to a brighter immortality, let us not sleep, as do others, who are the sons and daughters of night and darkness ; 1 Thess. v. 4, 5. Motive II. " Almost every thing around us, in this world of sense and sin, tends to lull us asleep again as soon as we begin to be awake." The busy or the pleasant scenes of this temporal life, are ever calling away our thoughts from eternal things, they conceal from us the spiritual world, and close our eyes to God, and things di- vine and heavenly. lithe eyes of the soul were but open to invisible things, what lively christians would we be ? .But either the winds of worldly cares rock us to sleep, or the charm of worldly pleasures soothes us into deceitful slumbers. We are too ready to indulge earthly delights, and, while we dream ofpleasure in the creatures, we lose, or, at least, abate our delights in God. Even the lawful satisfactions of flesh and sense, and the enticing objects round about us, may attach our hearts so fast to them, as to draw us down into a bed of carnal ease, till we fall asleep in spiritual security, and forget that we are made for heaven, and that our hope and our home is on high. Motive III. "Many thousandshave been found sleep- ing at the call of Christ :" Some, perhaps, in a profound
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