you a fearful fight. Take a view of the world, SRM. "caft your eyes round about on every fide; be- XVII. "hold the generality of men all asleep, afleep "under wrath, careless and at eafe, fecurely flum "bering while their judgement lingereth not, and "while their deftruction doth not flumber: be "warned by fo dreadful an example not to do, "as they do."

THE words do not need much of literal explication. Sleep is wont to be variously taken. You know what it means in the proper fense. In the borrow'd fenfe it fometimes fignifies, natural death; fometimes a quiet compofure, and reft of the fpirit: I will both lay me down in peace, and fleep; for the Lord only maketh me dwell in fafety. Again, that is, in a moral fenfe, it fignifies the state of fin: Awake thou that sleepest, and arife from the dead; and Chrift fhall give thee light. It denotes efpecially the fecurity of such a state, with reference to the wrath and judgement of God, whether temporal or eternal which fleep is always finful, and in fome cafes penal too in fome degree: for we read of a pouring forth a spirit of flumber, and a deep sleep. But we must know that the word * here used in the text, fignifies a deeper or a more intense sleep. It is the word that is ufed by the Septuagint to fignify the fleep of death. Many that fleep in the duft of the earth fhall awake".

a Pfal. Iv. 8. CXXVII. 2.

Ifai. XXIX. 10.

• Dan. XII. 2.

And they use the

fame

Ephef. v. 14.

Rom. XI. 8.

* Καθεύδωμες.

II.

VOL. fame word to exprefs that faft fleep of the Pro phet Jonas, out of which all the storms and perils of the fea were not fufficient to awaken him. As for the words us, and others; the former plainly means true fincere Chriftians, and the latter the reft of the world: the refufe, as the word * emphatically fignifies; or the reprobate, and worft of men.

Two things offer themselves to us from the words.

THAT these others, the refufe who are the most of men do sleep. And

THAT GOD's own people by no means ought to do fo. I fhall speak to thefe two things; And,

I. SHEW you, that these others, here referred to, by the Apostle, do fleep. And,

II. UPON what accounts it fo very ill becomes the people of GOD to do fo too.

fhall make the ufe of both together.

And then I

. I. I AM to fhew that the others, whom the text means do fleep. And herein I must premise to you, before we come to evince this point, that by fleeping is not merely meant, that they do actually for the prefent fleep only; as if the Apostle supposed them to be but in fome prefent temporary flumber: but we are to underftand him as fpeaking of them as habitual sleepers; or that they are under fuch a fort of fleeping dif ease,

με λοίποι.

cafe, as is resembled by a lethargy; or a caros, SER M. which is reckoned a more intense degree of that XVII. disease; a veternum, or dead sleep. ficians diftinguish, these things, or

How phy

criticks, I

need not stay to tell you. But the thing that is plainly meant hereby is to represent this as the common state of the world, that it is an habitual droufinefs, fuch as that kind of disease serves to resemble.

Now that this is the common ftate of most of the world, we may evince to you by fuch things, as are usually incident to fleep; or are symptoms of a fleepy, fluggish difpofition. As,

1. FORGETFULNESS, which has most proper reference to things paft. Sleepy persons are very oblivious. So is the common cafe of the world. Men are forgetful of things they are moft concerned to remember, and most forgetful of them. They have generally forgot that they are creatures; have forgot that with the reft of men they are lapfed, and revolted from their Creator, and become finners; forgot that they fprung from an apoftate race, and that they were children of wrath, one as well as another. Thus their strange forgetfulness of things, which one would think fhould continually urge them, fhews that they are continually asleep.

2. INSENSIBLENESS, or ftupidity, which hath reference to what is present. Persons that are in a more intense and deep fleep, you cannot make them feel without difficulty. Such as are in a caros, prick them and they do not feel.

Sleep

II.

VOL. Sleep is a binding of the fenfes, and fuch a deep Пleep strongly binds them. So the common case is with the world. It is a wonder of divine power if at any time their hearts are made to feel; and a thing to be recorded (as you find it is in the Acts of the Apostles) if any are ever pricked in their heart, though never so pungent things are spoken to them.

3. SECURITY; or unapprehenfiveness of any future threatening danger. Why, so you know the cafe is with perfons afleep. Let the danger be never fo near, as well as dreadful; if the house be on fire, if the murderer be by the bed-fide, if the fword be at the breaft, the knife at the throat, yet they are void of all fear. And do not we know this to be the common cafe with the world? Destruction from the Almighty is no terror to them. They rufh with all violence upon every danger, as an horfe into the battle: or are like perfons in their nocturnals; who, if not hindered, would come upon rocks, precipices, or rivers, or fall into dangers that would certainly destroy them. Another thing incident to fleep is,

4. MISAPPREHENSION of all things past, prefent, or to come. For you know in fleep perfons use to dream, and then how ftrangely do they misapprehend things? their heads are fuil of falfe images, or false conceptions of those things which are true. The cafe is fo with the world too in their fleep. They can tell how to dif

imagine

• Chip. 11. 37.

imagine all the greateft realities, and turn them SER M. into fhadows. GOD and Chrift, heaven and XVII. hell, and the eternal judgement, which must determine them to the one or the other of thefe are all fancies with them. But the pomp and grandeur of this world, which is called fancy f; the business and turmoils of it, which are all walking in a vain fhew; outward profperity, which is but as a dream when one awakes: these things are great realities, and with them these are the main things, and the most important. Riches and poverty, profperity and adverfity, which will be all thought fancies in a little while, are great things with thefe men; fo aptly do they misapprehend in their dreams!

5. THERE is alfo (which is near a-kin to the laft) a great unaptnefs to reflect upon any thing as abfurd, though never fo truly fo, which occurs to them in this dreaming fleepy ftate. It is fo with perfons, you know, in dreams. Let things occur to them never so abfurd, they never take notice of the abfurdity. Let them dream 'themselves to be in never fuch odd antick poftures, all is well; they find no fault with any thing they do, or is done to them, while they are in their flumbers. And fo is the cafe with the world too. The moft abfurd things imaginable, are no abfurdities to them. To live in this world of GOD's making, while he feeds them with breath from moment to moment, yet as VOL. II. without

X

f Agrippa and Berenice came μετα πολλῆς Φαντασίας. Acts xxv. 23.