387 / 674
Se.
II,
THfi WATCHFUL CHRISTIAN
IYYING
IN
rBACT.
1'0
found
sleeping,
and hurried
away from
earth
into
the
invisible world, in
the midst
of
our foolish dreams
of
golden vanity.
Dreadful
indeed, to have
a young
thoughtless
creature carried
off the stage sleeping,
and
dead
in
trespasses
and
sins
:
Let
those
that are drunk
with
wine fall
asleep upon the top
of
a mast
in
the mid-
dle
of
the
sea,
where the
winds
and the
waves,
are
tos-
sing
and
roaring all
areund
them
;
let
a mad
man, who
hast lost his reason,
lie down to
sleep upon
the edge
of
a
precipice, where a
pit of
fire
and
brimstone
is
burning
beneath
him,
and ready
to receive
his fall
;
but let not
young
sinners, whose
rational
powers
are
in exercise,
and
whose
life
is
every moment,
a
Mere
uncertainty,
venture
to
go
on in
their
dangerous
slumbers, while
the
wrath of
God, and
eternal
misery
attend
them,
if
they
die before they
are awake.
It
is
granted,
that
no
power
beneath that
which
is
di-
'
line,
can eflèctually
quicken
a dead
soul,
and awaken
it
into a
divine
life.
It
is
the work
of
God,
"to
quicken the
dead;"
Rom.
iv. 17.
Eph.
ii.
5.
It
is
the
Son
of
God,
who
is
the
`Plight
and
life
of
the world
;"
John
i.
4.
to
whom
"
the
Father
has given this
quickening power
;"
John
v.
26.
He
calls sinners, to
awaken them
from
their
deadly
sleep
;
Eph,
v.
14.
And
"they
live by him, as
he
lives
by
the
Father
;"
John
vi.
57.
He
awakens
dead
souls
to life
by
the 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
,Sph
it he
"
bath
received
from the
Father
;"
John
iii.
34.
And,
on this
account,
we
are to
seek the vital
influences
of
this
grace
from heaven
by
constant
aí
}d
importunate prayer.
Yet,
in
my
text,
as well as in
ether
scriptures, awaking
out
of
Sleep,
and watching unto righteousness,
is
represented
as
our
duty,
and
we
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
diligence in duty,
and our dependence
on the
di-
vine 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 tithe
is;
that
the
Lord
will
come.
And again,
chapter
xiv.
38.
"-Watch
and
pray,
'that
ye
enter not
into
"temptation."
Trust
fot
in
your