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THE WATCHFUL CHRISTIAN DYING
IN
PEACE.
{DISC.
n.
comes,
for
this
is
the case
with those who
are
asleep
;
On
the
other
hand,
watchfulness
is
a
preparation and
readiness
for
every
event,
and
so
it
is
expressed
in
some
of
these parables, verse 40.
"
Be ye
therefore ready."
But
to
enter
into
a
few
particulars.
1.
There
is
a
sleep
of
death,
Ps.
xiii.
3:
Spiritual
death,
as well as
natural,
is
sometimes called
a
sleep.
Such
is
the
case
of a
soul
"
dead
in trespasses and
sins,'
Eph.
v.
14.
compared with
ii.
1.
"
Awake thou
that
sleepest,
and
arise from the dead,
and Christ
shall
give
thee
light."
Watchfulness, therefore,
implies
life,
a
principle of
Spiritual
life in
the
soul
:
Surely those, who
are
dead
in
sins,
are not prepared
to receive
their
Lord. He
is
a
perfect stranger
to them, they know
him not, they
love
him not, they obey
him
not;
and
a
terrible stranger
he
trill
be,
if
he
come upon
them
before
they are
awake.
But
those, who
are
awakened
by
divine grace into a
spiritual
life,
have
seen
something
of
tho
glory
of
God
in
the
face
of
Jesus Christ,;
they
are
acquainted
with
their
Lord,
they
love him,
and
have some degree
of prepa-
ration
to
meet their
Saviour, when 'ne summons them
to
leave
this world. This
is,
therefore, a matter of
highest
consequence,
that
we
awake
from a state
of
sin
and
death,
that
we
be
made
alive
to
God,
begin the christian
life,
and
set upon
religion,
i'n
good earnest, according
to the rules
of
the
gospel,
before
Christ
calls
us away.
It
is
only this
divine
life
begun
in
us,
that
can
secure
us
from
eternal
death
;
though
'even Christians
may
be
found slumbering
in
other
respects,
and
expose them
-
selves
to
painful
evils,
if that hour
surprize
them
at
uri
awares.
2.
There
is
a
sleep of
indolence and thoughtlessness:
When
a man
is
insensible of
his
-own
circumstances, and
too careless
of
y,he
things which most
concern
him, we
say,
"
the
m
'n,
is
asleep."
Such
a
sleep
seems
to
be
upon
the
chug
:-ch
of
Israel
;
Isai.
xxix.
10,
11:
"a
spirit
of
deep
sleep, when
the
law,
which
contained
the
great
things
of
'God,
and their salvation,
was
to them as
a
sealed
book,
they
read it
not,
their
eyes
were closed,
their
spiritua',
senses were
bound up." Many a
christian,
who
bath b'
:eri
raised
from a
death
in
sin,
has been
seized with
this
e
r
irrìinal slntrrber,
and
has
had the
`image
of
death
CC"
.te
again
upon
him
:
He has
grown too careless and