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SIIRPRIZR IN
DEA-TH.
[DISC.
III
nently applied
to
the season
when he shall
send
his
'mes-
senger
of
death
to fetch
us
hence: Watch
ye;
there-
fore,
lest,
coming suddenly,
he
find
you
sleeping.
When I
had
occasion to
treat
on a
subject near
a -kin
to
this,*
I
shewed,
that
there
was
a distinction
to
be
made
between the dead sleep
of a
sinner, and slumber
of
an
unwatchful christian.
Those
who
never had the
work
of
religion begun
in
their hearts
or
lives,
are sleep-
ing the sleep
of death;
whereas
some, who
are made
alive
by
the
grace
of
Christ,
yet
may
indulge
sinful
drow-
siness, and grow careless and secure, slothful and inac-
tive.
"
The
wise
virgins, as well as
the
foolish, were
slumbering and sleeping,"
Mat.
xxv.
5.
The
mischiefs
and
sorrows, which
attend each
of
these when
Christ
shall summon them
to
judgment,
or
shall call
them
away
from
earth,
by
natural
death,
are great
and formidable,
though
they
are
not equally dangerous:
Let
us
consider
each of them
in succession, in
order
to
rouse dead sin-
ners
from
their
lethargy,
and
to
keep
drowsy
christians
awake.
First,
let
us survey
the sad consequences;
which
at-
tend those
that
are
asleep
in sin,
and
spiritually dead,
when the
hour
of
natural
death approaches: They
are
such
as
these
:
I.
fC
If
they
happen
to be awakened
on
the borders
of
the grave,
into what
a
horrible
confusion
and
distress
of
soul
are
they plunged
?"
What
keen anguish
of
con-
science, for
their past
iniquities,
seizes
upon them?
What
bitter
remorse and self
-
reproaches, for
the seasons
of
grace which
they have wasted,
for the
proposals of
mercy
which
they have abused
and
rejected, and for the
divine salvation,
which seems now to be
lost
for ever,
and
put
almost
beyond the
reach
of
possibility and
hope.
They
feel
the messenger
of
death
laying
his
cold
hands
upon
them, and they
shudder
and tremble
with
the
ex-
pectation of approaching
misery.
They look up
to
heaven, and
they
see
a
God of
holiness there,
as
a
con-
suming
fire,
ready
to
devour
them
as
stubble
fit
for
the
flame
:
They
look
to the
Son
of God,
who
hath
the
keys
*
In,a
funeral sermon for Mrs.
Sarah Abney,
on Luke xii.
37.
"
Blessed
are
those servants, whom
the Lord,
when
he coinçth, shall
find
watch.
ing."