Surprise in Death
Mark xiii. 36. Watch ye therefore, lest coming; suddenly, he find you sleeping.
Among the parables of our Saviour, there are several recorded by the Evangelists, which represent him as a Prince, or Lord and Master of a familyr, departing for a season from his servants, and in his absence, appointing them their proper work, with a solemn charge to wait for his return; at which time he foretold them, that he should require an account of their behaviour in his absence, and he either intimates or expresses a severe treatment of those, who should neglect their duty while he was gone, or make no preparation for his appearance. He informs them also that he should come upon them on a sudden, and for this reason charges them to be always awake and upon their guard, ver, 35, “Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning.”
Though the ultimate design of these parables, and the 1 coming of Christ’ mentioned therein, refer to the great day of judgment, when he shall return from heaven, shall raise the dead, and call mankind to appear before his judgment seat, to receive a recompense according to their works; yet both the duties and the warnings, which are represented in these parables, seem to be very accommodable to the hour of our death; for then our Lord Jesus, who c has the keys of death and’ the grave, and ’ the unseen world,’ comes to finish our state of trial, and to put a period to all our works on earth: He comes then to call us into the invisible state; he disposes our bodies to the dust, and our souls are sent into other mansions, and taste some degrees of appointed happiness or misery, according lo their behaviour here. The solemn and awful warning which my text gives us concerning the return of Christ to judgment, may be therefore pertinently applied to the season, when he shall send his messenger of death, to fetch us hence; “Watch ye therefore, lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping.”
When I had occasion to treat on a subject near akin 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 sleeping the sleep of death, whereas some who are made alive by the grace of Christ yet may indulge sinful drowsiness, and grow careless and secure, slothful and unactive. “The wise virgins as well as the foolish, were slumbering and sleeping,” Matt. 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 sinners from their lethargy, and to keep drowsy Christians awake.
First. Let us survey the sad consequences which attend those that -are ’ asleep in sin and spiritually dead,’ when the hour of natural death approaches. They are -such as these:
I. ‘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 conscience 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 expectation of approaching misery. They look up to heaven and they see a God of holiness there, as a consuming fire ready to devour them, as stubble fit for the flame. They look to the Son of God, who has the keys of death in his hand, and who calls them away from the land of the living, even to Jesus, the com-
* In a funeral Sermon for Miss Sarah Abney, on Luke xii. 37. “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.”
passionate Mediator, but they can scarce persuade themselves to expect any thing from him, because they have turned a deaf ear so long to the invitations of his gospel, and so long affronted his divine compassion. They look behind them, and with painful agonies are frighted at the mountains of their former guilt, ready to overwhelm them. They look forward, and see the pit of hell opening upon them, with all its torments; long darkness without a glimpse of light, and eternal despair with no glimmerings of hope.
Or, if, now and then amidst their horrors, they would try to form some faint hope of mercy, how are their spirits perplexed with prevailing and distracting fears, with keen and cutting reflections? ‘Oh that I had improved my former seasons for reading, forpraying, for meditating on divine things! But I cannot read, I can hardly meditate, and scarce know how to pray. Will the ear of God ever hearken to the cries and groans of a rebel that has so long resisted his grace? Are there any pardons to be had for a criminal, who never left his sins till vengeance was in view? Will the blood of Christ ever be applied to wash a soul, that has wallowed in his defilements, till death roused him out of them? Will the meanest favour of heaven, be indulged to a wretch who ‘has grown bold in sin, in opposition to so loud and repeated warnings? I am awake indeed, but I can see nothing round me but distresses and discouragements, and my soul sinks within me, and my heart dies at the thoughts of appearing before God.’
It is a wise, and just observation among Christians, though it is a very common one, that the Scriptures give us one instance of a penitent saved in his dying hour, and that is the thief upon the cross,’ that so none might utterly despair; but there is but one such instance given, that none might presume. The work of repentance is too difficult, and too important a thing, to be left to the languors of a dying bed, and the tumults and flutterings of thought, which attend such a late conviction. There can be hardly any effectual proofs given of the sincerity of such repent in gs: and I am verily persuaded there are few of them sincere; for we have often found these violent emotions of conscience vanish again, if the sinner has happened to recover his health. They seem merely to be the wild perplexities and struggles of nature, averse to misery, rather
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than averse to sin. Their renouncing their former lusts, on the very borders of hell and destruction, is more like the vehement and irregular efforts of a drowning creature, constrained to let go a most beloved object, and taking eager hold of any plank for safety; rather than the calm and reasonable, and voluntary designs of a mariner, who forsakes his earthly joys, ventures himself in a ship that is offered him, and sets sail for the heavenly country. I never will pronounce such efforts and endeavours desperate, lest I limit the grace of God, which is unbounded; but I can give very little encouragement for hope to an hour or two, of this vehement and tumultuous penitence, on the very brink of damnation. * Judas repented,’ but his agonies of soul, hurried him to hasten his, own death, “that he might go to his own place.” And there is abundance of such kind of repenting, in every corner of hell; that is a deep and dreadful pit, whence there is no redemption, though there are millions of such sort of penitents; it is a strong and dark prison, where no beam’of comfort ever shines, where bitter anguish and mourning for sins past, is no evangelical repentance, but everlasting and hopeless sorrow.
II. * Those that are found sleeping at the hour of death’ are carried away at once from all their sensual pursuits and enjoyments, which were their chosen portion, and their highest happiness.’ At once they lose all their golden dreams, and their chief good is, as it were, snatched away from them at once and for ever. * They stand on slippery places, they are brought to destruction in a moment,’ and all their former joys ’ are like a dream when one awaketh, and finds himself beset round with terrors.
Are there’ any of you that are pleasing yourselves here in the days of youth and vanity, and indulge your dreams of pleasure, in the sleep of spiritual death? Think of the q approaching moment, when the death of nature shall dissolve your sleep, and scatter all the delusive images of sinful joy. This separation from the body of flesh, is a fearful shock given to the soul, that makes it awake indeed. Sermons would not do it; the voice of the preacher was not loud enough; strokes of affliction, and smarting providences would not do it; perhaps the soul might be roused a little, but dropt into profound sleep again: sudden or surprising deaths near them, and even the pains of nature
F in their own flesh, their own sicknesses and diseases, did not awaken them, nor the voice of the Lord in them all: but the parting-stroke that divides the soul and body, will terribly awaken the soul from the vain delusion, and all its fancied delights for ever vanish.
.When they are ’ visited by the Lord of hosts with this thunder and earthquake,’ as the Prophet -Isaiah speaks, when ’ this storm and tempest’ of death, shall shake the sinner out of his airy visions, he shall be as an hungry man that dreameth he was eating, but awakes and his soul is empty; or as a thirsty creature dreaming that he drinks, but he awaketh, and behold he is faint,’ and his soul is pained with raging appetite. The sinner finds to his own torment, how wretchedly he has deceived himself and fed upon vanity. There are no more earthly objects to please his senses, and to gratify his inclinations; but the soul for ever lives upon a rack of carnal desire, and no proper object to satisfy it. His taste is not suited to the pleasures of a world of spirits; he can find no God there to comfort him. Godjvith his offers of grace are gone for ever, and the world with its joys are for ever vanished, while the wretched and malicious creatures, into whose company he is hurried, and who were the tempters or associates of his crimes, shall stand round him to become his tormentors.
III. ‘Though death will awaken sinful souls into a sharper and more lively sense of divine and heavenly things than ever they had in this world, yet they shall never be awakened to spiritual life and holiness.’ And I think I may add, that though they should be awakened to a sight of God, and his justice, and his grace, to a sight of heaven and hell, more immediate and perspicuous than what even the saints themselves usually enjoy in this life, yet they would remain still under the bondage of their lusts, still dead in trespasses and sins. They shall forever continue unbeloved of God, and incapable of all the happiness of the heavenly state, because they are for ever averse to the holiness of God, and themselves for ever unholy. It is only in the present state of trial, and under the present proposals of grace, that sleeping sinners can be awakened into the spiritual and divine life. The voice of the Son of God, that breaks the monuments of brass, and makes tombs of hardest marble yield to his call, shall never break one heart of stone, which is gone down to death, in its native and sinful hardness. That almighty voice that must awaken the nations of the dead, and command their bodies uprom the grave, shall never awaken one dead soul, when they are past the limits of this life. The compassionate calls of a Saviour, and the offers of mercy, are then come to their utmost period: and if .we refuse to hear the call A mercy to the moment of death, we shall then be terribly constrained to feel the loss of it, hut never able to obtain the blessing.
Obstinate sleepers shall be awakened .to see God, but only as Balaam was: “I shall see him but not nigh,” Numb. xxiv. 17. The saints in this life have God near them in all their trials, as a father and a friend, to uphold, to comfort, to sanctify, though they’see him but darkly through a glass, and behold but little of his power or glory. The sinner awaking in hell shall, perhaps, have a clearer and more acute perception of what God is, than any saint on earth: but he shall behold him as an enemy, and not a friend. If he beholds him in the glory of his grace, it is at a dreadful and insuperable distance; there is no grace foe him. He sees him in his holiness, but he cannot love him, he has no meltings of true penitence for his former rebellions against God, his heart is hardened into everlasting enmity, and shall never taste of his love. Hence arise all the foul and gnawing passions of envy, malignity, and long despair, which are the very image of Satan, and change mankind into devils.
These impenitent sons and daughters of men, shall grow into the more complete likeness of those wicked spirits, and, under the impressions of their guilt and damnation, they shall rival those apostate and cursed creatures, in the obstinate hatred of God, and all that is holy.
IV. Hence it will follow in the last place, that the sinner who is ’ fast asleep in his sins at the hour of death, shall awake into such a life as is worse than dying.’ He shall be surprised all at once into darkness and fire, which have no gleam of light, and sorrows without mitigation, and which can find no end. The punishment of hell is not called eternal death, to denote a state of senseless and stupid existence ;. but death being the most opposite to life, and all the enjoyments of it, the misery of hell is described by death, as the most formidable thing to nature, as a word that puts a period to all the enjoyments of this mortal life, and stands directly opposite to a life of joy and glory in the immortal world. Happy would it be for such souls if they could sink into an everlasting sleep, and gVow stupid and senseless for ever and ever; but this is a favour not to be granted to those who have been constant and unrepenting rebels, against the law and the grace of God.
The moment when the body falls asleep in death, the soul is more awake than ever, to behold its own guilt and wretchedness. It has then such a lively and piercing sense of its o*wn iniquities, and the divine wrath that is due to them, as it never saw or felt before. The inward senses of the soul (if I may so express it) which have been darkened and stupified, and benumbed in this body, are all awake at once, when the veil of flesh is thrown off, and the curtains are drawn back which divided them from the world of spirits. Every thought of sin, and the anger of Go.d, wounds the spirit deep in this awakened state, though it scarce felt any thing of it before; and “a wounded spirit who can bear?” Pro v. xviii. 14. But sinners must bear it days without end, and ages without hope.
Then the crimes they have committed, and the sinful pleasures they have indulged, shall glare upon their remembrance, and stare them in the face with dreadful surprise; and each of them is enough to drive a soul to despair. Nor can they turn their eyes away from the horrid sight, for their criminal practices beset them around, and the naked soul is all sight and all sense; it is eye and ear all over; it hears the dreadful curses of the law, and the sentence of the Judge, and never, never forgets it. This is the character, these the circumstances of an obstinate sinner, that awakes not till the moment of death, and “lift up his eyes in hell,” as our Saviour expresses it. These will be the consequences of our guilt and folly, if we are found in a dead sleep of sin, when our Lord comes to call us from this mortal state.
Secondly, Let us spend a few thoughts also upon the dangerous and unhappy circumstances of those of whom we may * have some reason to hope, that they have once begun religion in good earnest, and are made spiritually alive, but have indulged themselves in drowsiness, and worn out the latter end of their days in a careless, secure, and slothful frame of spirit.’
1. If they have had the principle of vital religion wrought in their hearts, yet * by these criminal slumbers, they darken and lose their evidences of grace, and by this means, they cut themselves off from the sweet reflections and comforts of it on a dying bed, when they have most need of them.’ They know not whether they are the children of God or not, and are in anxious confusion and distressing fear. They have scarce any plain proofs of their conversion to God, and the evidences of true Christianity* ready at hand, when all are little enough to support their spirits. They have not used themselves to search for them by self-enquiry, and to keep them in their sight, and therefore they are missing in this important hour. They have not been wont to live upon their heavenly hopes, and they cannot be found when they want them to rest upon in death. They die therefore almost like sinners, though they may perhaps have been once converted to holiness, and there may be a root of grace remaining in them; and the reason is, because they have lived too much as sinners do. They have given too great and criminal an indulgence, to the vain and worldly cares, or the trifling amusements of this life; these have engrossed almost all their thoughts and their time, and therefore in the day of death they fall under terrors and painful apprehensions of a doubtful eternity just at hand.
If we have not walked closely with God in this world, we may well be afraid to appear before him in the next If we have not maintained a constant converse with Jesus our Saviour, by holy exercises of faith and hope, it is no wonder if we are not so ready with cheertulness and joy, to resign our departing spirits into his hand. It is possible we may have a right to the inheritance of heaven, having had some sight of it by faith as revealed in the gospel, having in the main chosen it for our portion, and set our feet in the path of holiness that leads to it; but we have so often wandered out of the way, that in this awful and solemn hour, we shall be in doubt, whether we shall be received at the gates, and enter into the city.
Such unwatchful Christians have not kept the eternal glories of heaven, in their constant and active pursuit, they have not lived upon them as their portion and inheritance,
* That is, “evidences” of their being truly the followers of Christ, and of having an interest in him, — Ed.
9 F2 they have been too much strangers to the invisible world of happiness, and they know not how to venture through death into it. They have built ’ indeed upon the solid foundation, Christ Jesus’ and the gospel, but they have mingled so much ’ hay and stubble’ with the superstructure, that when they depart hence, or when they appear before Christ in judgment, “they shall suffer great loss by the burning of their works, yet themselves may be saved so as by fire,” 1 Cor. iii. 10 — 15. They may pass as it were by the flame of hell, and have something like the scorching terrors of it in death, though the abounding and forgiving grace of the gospel may convey them safe to heaven. They escape as a man that is awakened with the sudden alarms of fire, who suffers the loss of his substance, and a great part of the fruit of his labours, and just saves his own life. They plunge into eternity, and make a sort of terrible escape from hell.
2. They can never expect any peculiar favours from heaven at the hour of death, no special visitations of the comforting Spirit, nor that the love of God, and the joy of his presence, should attend them through the dark valley.’ It is not to such unwatchful or sleepy Christians, that God is wont to vouchsafe his choicest consolations. They fall under terrible fears about the pardon of their sins, when they stand in most need of the sight of their pardon; and Christ, as the rider of his church, sees it fit they should be thus punished for their negligence. They lay hold of the promises of mercy with a trembling hand, and cannot claim them by a vigorous faith, because they have not been wont to live upon them, nor do they see those holy characters in their own hearts and lives, which confirm their title to them. They have no bright views of the celestial world, and earnests of their salvation; for it is only for watchful souls, that these cordials are prepared in the fainting hour: it is only to the watchful Christian, that these fore-tastes of glory are given. “The fruit of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance for ever,” Isai. xxxii. 17. “Blessed is he which watcheth, and keepeth his garments” clean, that he may enter with triumph into that city, where nothing shall enter that defileth.
3. Slumbering and slothful Christians are often-times left to wrestle with sore temptations of Satan, and have dreadful conflicts in the day of death:’ and the reason is evident, because they have not watched against their adversary, and obtained but few victories over him in their life. These temptations are keen and piercing thorns, that enter deep into the heart of a dying creature. The devil may be let loose upon them with great wrath, knowing that his time is but short;’ and yet there is great justice in the conduct of the God in heaven, in giving them up to be buffeted by the powers of hell. What frightful agonies are raised in the conscience, by the tempter, and the accuser of souls, on a sick or dying bed, can hardly be described by the living, and are known only to those who have felt them in death.
4. ‘Such drowsy Christians make dismal work for new and terrible repentance on a death bed:’ for, though they have sincerely repented in times past of their former sins, yet, having too much omitted the self-mortifying duties, having given too much indulgence to temptation and folly, and having not maintained this habitual penitence for their daily offences in constant exercise, their spirits are now filled with fresh convictions and bitter remorse of heart. The guilt of their careless and slothful conduct finds them out now, and beset them around, and they feel most acute sorrows, and wounding reflections of conscience, while they have need of most comfort. What a glorious entrance had St. Paul into the world of spirits, and the presence of Christ? He had made repentance, and mortification, and faith in Jesus, his daily work: “0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I run, I fight, I subdue my body, and keep it under; I am crucified to the world, and the world to me; the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” When he was “ready to be offered up, and the time of his departure was at hand,” from the edge of the sword, and the borders of the grave, he could look back upon his former life, and say, “1 have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge will give me.” 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.
5. ‘The unwatchful Christian, at the hour of death, has the pain and anguish of reflecting, that he has omitted many duties to God and man, and these can never be performed now; that he has done scarce any services for
Christ in the world, and those must be left for ever undone: there is no further work or device, no labours of zeal, no activity for God ’ in the grave,’ whither we are hastening, Eccl. ix. 10. ‘Alas! I have brought forth but little fruit to God, and it is well if I be not cast away as an unprofitable servant. My talents have lain bound up in rust, or been but poorly employed, whilst I have lain slumbering and unactive. The records of my life in the court of heaven, will shew but very little service for God amongst men: I have raised few monuments of praise to my Redeemer, and I can never raise them now. I shall have but few testimonies for my love and zeal, to appear in the great day of account, when the martyrs, and the confessors, and the lively Christians, shall be surrounded with the living ensigns of their victories over sin and the world, and their glorious services for their Redeemer. Wretch that lam! that I have loved my Lord at so cold a rate, and lain slumbering on a bed of ease, whilst I should have been fighting the battles of the Lord, and gaining daily honours for my Saviour!’
6. ‘As such sort of Christians give but little glory to God in life, so they do him no honour in death: they are no ornaments to religion while they continue here, and leave perhaps but little comfort with their friends when they go hence.’ Doubtings and jealousies about their eternal welfare, mingle with our tears and sorrows for a dying friend; these anxious fears about the departed spirit swell the tide of our grief high, and double the inward anguish. They are gone, alas! from our world, but we know not whither they are gone, to heaven or to hell. A sad farewel to those whom we love! a dismal parting-stroke, and a long heart ache!
And what honour can be expected to be done to God or his Son, what reputation or glory can be given to religion and the gospel, by a drowsy Christian departing, as it were, under a spiritual lethargy? He dies under a cloud, and casts a gloom upon the Christian faith. St. Paul was a man of another spirit, a lively and active saint, full of vigour and zeal in his soul. It was the holy resolution and assurance of this blessed apostle, “that Christ should be magnified in his body, whether by life or death,” Phil. i. 20. He spent ‘his life’ in the service of Christ, and he could rejoice in ’ death as his gain.’ It is a glory to the gospel, when we can lie down and die with courage, in the hope of its promised blessings. It is an honour to our common faith, when it overcomes the terrors of death, and raises the Christian to a song of triumph, in view of the last enemy. It is a new crown put upon the head of our Redeemer, and a living cordial put into the hands of mourning friends in our dying hour, when we can take our leave of them with holy fortitude, rejoicing in the salvation of Christ. No sooner does he call but we are ready, and can answer, with holy transport, Lord I come.’ This is a blessing that belongs only to the watchful Christian. May every one of us be awake to salvation in our expiring moments, and partake of this glorious blessedness!
I proceed now to a few remarks, and particularly such asielate to the necessity and duty of constant watchfulness, and the hazardous case of sleeping souls.
1. Remark. ‘To presume on long life is a most dangerous temptation, for it is the common spring and cause of spiritual sleep and drowsiness.’ Could we take an inward view of the hearts of men, and trace out the springs of their coldness and indifference about eternal things, and the shameful neglect of their most important interests, we should find this secret thought in the bottom of their hearts, that ’ we are not like to die to-day or to-morrow.’ They put this evil day afar off, and indulge themselves in their carnal delights, without the solicitude to prepare for the call of God. There is scarce any thing produces so much evil fruit in the world, so much shameful wickedness amongst the sensual and profane, or such neglect of lively religion among real Christians, as this bitter root of presumption upon life and time before us. Matth. xxiv. 48, 49, “The evil servant” did not “begin to smite his fellows and to eat and drink with the drunken,” till he “said in his heart, my Lord delayeth his coming:” It was “while the bridegroom tarried,” and they imagined he would tarry longer, that even the wise vitgins fell into slumbers. Ask your own hearts, my friends, does not this thought secretly lurk within you, when you comply with a temptation, ‘surely I shall not die yet: I have no sickness upon me, nor tokens of death, I shall live a little longer, and repent of my follies?’ Vain expectation and groundless fancy! when you see the young, and the strong, and the healthy, seized away from the midst of you, and the final period put at once to all their works and designs in this life. Yet we are foolisn enough to imagine our term of life shall be extended, and we presume upon months and years, which God hath not written down for us in his own book, and which he will never give us to enjoy.
We are all borderers upon the river of death, which conveys us into the eternal world, and we should be ever waiting the call of our Lord, that we may launch away with joy, to the regions of immortality. But thoughtless creatures that we are, we are perpetually wandering far up, into the fields of sense and time, we are gathering the gay and fading flowers that grow there, and filling our laps with them as a fair treasure, or making garlands for ambition to crown ourbrows,till one and another of usiscalledofF on a sudden, and hurried away from this mortal coast. Those of us who survive, are surprised a little, we stand gazing, we follow our departing friends with a weeping eye for a minute or two, and then we fall to our amusements again, and grow busy as before, in gathering the flowers of time and sense. 0 how fond we are to enrich ourselves with these perishing trifles, and adorn our heads with honours and withering vanities, never thinking which of us may receive the next summons to leave all behind us, and stand before God; but each presumes, ‘it will not be sent to me.’ We trifle with God and things eternal, or utterly forget them, while our hands and our hearts are thus deeply engaged in the pursuit of our earthly delights. All our powers of thought and action, are intensely busied amongst the dreams of this life, while we are asleep to God, because we vainly imagine he will not call us yet.
2. Remark. i Whatsoever puts us in mind of dying, should be improved to awaken us from our spiritual sleep.’ Sudden deaths near us should have this effect; our young companions and acquaintance snatched away from among us in an unexpected hour, should become our monitors in death, and teach us this divine and needful lesson. The surprising loss of our friends who lay near our hearts, should put us in mind of our own departure, and powerfully awaken us from our dangerous slumbers. Sinners, when they feel no sorrows, think of no death; but ’ when the judgments of God are in the earth,’ his Spirit can awaken ‘the inhabitants of the world to learn righteousness.’ At such seasons it is time for the sinners in Zion’ to be ’ afraid, and tearfulness to surprise the hypocrites.’ Even the children of God have sometimes need of painful warningpieces, to awaken them from their careless, their slothful, and their secure frame: and as for those souls who are indeed awake to righteousness, and lively in the practice of all religion and virtue, such sudden and awful strokes of Providence have a happy tendency to wean them from creatures, and keep them awake to God, that i when their Lord comes he may find them watching,’ and pronounce upon them everlasting blessedness.
3. Remark. ‘No person can be exempted from this duty of watchfulness, till he is Lord of his own life, and can appoint the time of his own dying.’ Then indeed you might have some colour for your carnal indulgences, some pretence for sleeping, if you were sovereign of death and the grave, and had the keys in your own hand.
And truly such as venture to sleep in sin, do in effect say, we are lords of our own life. They act and manage as if their times were in their own hands, and not in the hand of their Maker. But the watchful Christian lives upon that principle, which David professes, Psal. xxxi. 15, “My times are in thine hand,” 0 Lord; and they never give rest to themselves till they can rejoice with him, and say to the Lord, “thou art my God; into thy hands I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed it, and 1 leave it to thy appointment when thou wilt dislodge me from this body of flesh and blood, and call me into thy more immediate presence.” If we could but resist the messenger of death, when the Lord of hosts has sent it, if we could shut the mouth of the grave when the Son of God has opened it for us, with the key that is entrusted in his hand, we might say then to our souls, ‘Sleep on upon your bed of ease, and take your rest; but woe be to those who will venture to sleep in an unholy and unpardoned state, or even allow themselves the indulgence of short and sinful slumbers, when they cannot resist death one moment, when they cannot delay the summons of heaven, when they cannot defer their appearance before that Judge, whose sentence is eternal pleasure, or everlasting pain.
Our holy watch must not be intermitted one moment, for every following moment is a grand uncertainty. There is no minute of life, no point of time, wherein I can say,
I shall not die,’ and therefore I should not dare to say,. ’ this minute I will take a short slumber.’ What if my Lord should summon me while he finds me sleeping? His command cannot be disobeyed, the very call and sound of it divides me from flesh and blood, and all that is mortal, and sends me at once into the eternal world, for it is an almighty voice.
4. Remark. As it is a foolish and dangerous thing, for any of the sons and daughters of men to presume upon long life, and neglect their watch, so persons under some peculiar circumstances, are eminently called to be ever wakeful.’ Give me leave here to reckon up some of them, and make a particular address to the persons concerned.
(1.) ‘Is your constitution of body weak and feeble?7 You carry then a perpetual warning about you never to indulge sinful drowsiness. Every languor of nature assures you that it is sinking to the dust: every pain you feel, should put you in mind, that the pains of death are ready to seize you: you are tottering upon the very borders of the grave, and will you venture to drop in before your hopes of life and immortality are secured, and a joyful resurrection? You pass perhaps many nights, wherein the infirmities of your flesh will not suffer you to sleep, and to take that common refreshment of nature, and shall not these same infirmities keep you awake to things spiritual, and rouse all your thoughts and cares about your immortal interests?
(2.) ‘You whose circumstances or employments of lifer expose you to perpetual dangers either by land or by sea;’ you who carry your lives as it were in your hand, and are often in a day within a few inches of death; is it not necessary for you to inquire daily, Am I prepared for a departure hence? Am I ready to hear the summons of my Lord, and ready to give up my account before him? Shall I dare go on another day with my sins unpardoned, with my soul unsanctified, and in immediate danger of eternal misery? A fall from a horse, or a house-top, may send you down to the pit whence there is no redemption; every wind that blows, and every rising wave, may convey you into the eternal world, and are you ready to meet the great God in such a surprise, and without warning?
(3.) You who are ‘young and vigorous, and flourish amidst all the gaieties and allurements of life,’ you are in most danger of being lulled asleep in sin, and therefore I addressed you lately in a funeral discourse, when the present providence gave each of you a new and loud call to awake, and I pray God you may hear his voice in it.
(4.) Perhaps others of you are arrived at old age, and the course of nature forbids you to expect a long continuance in the land of the living: are any of my hearers ancient sinners and asleep still? Venturous and thoughtless creatures! that have grown old in slumber, and worn out their whole life in iniquities! Surely it is time for you to hear the voice of the Son of God in the gospel, and accept of his salvation. Behold the Judge is at the door, he comes speedily, and he will not tarry, his herald of death is just at hand. Are you willing he should seize you in a deadly sleep, and send you into eternal sorrows?
And let aged Christians bestir themselves, and awake from their slothful and secure frames of spirit; let them look upward to the crown that is not far off, to the prize that is almost within reach. ‘Whatsoever your hand’ or heart ’ find to do’ for God, ’ do it with all your’ zeal and ‘might: let your loins be girt’ about, and your natural powers active in his service, ‘let your lamp’ of profession be bright and burning, that when Jesus comes, ye may receive him with joy.
(5.) And are there any of you ‘that are under decays of grace and piety,’ that are ‘labouring and wrestling with strong corruptions,’ or in .actual conflict with repeated temptations which too often prevail over you? It becomes you to hear the watch-word which Christ often gives to his churches under such circumstances: make haste and awake unto holiness, ‘be watchful and strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die; hold fast what thou hast received; remember thy first affection and zeal, and repent’ and mourn for what thou hast lost, ‘lest I come upon thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know the hour.’ Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works, for thou hast lost thy first love. Have a care of dangerous luke-warmne’ss, and indifference in the things of religion. This is the very temper of a sleepy declining Christian, while he dreams he is rich and has great attainments. Take heed, lest presuming upon thy riches and thy self-sufficiency, thou shouldest be found ’ wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’ Keep your souls
10 G awake hourly, and be upon your guard against every adversary, and every defilement, lest ye be seized away in the commission of some sin, or in the compliance with some foul temptation. The drowsy soldier is liable to be led captive, and to die in fetters, and groan heavily in death. But ’ blessed is the watchful’ Christian; he shall be found amongst the overcomers, and shall partake of the rich variety of divine favours, which are contained in the epistles to the seven churches. Rev. ii. and iii.
Though the greatest part of a former discourse, has been describing the blessedness of a watchful Christian at the hour of death, and in this I have set before you the sad consequences that attend sleepers (both which are powerful preservatives against drowsiness,) yet at the conclusion of 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 1. ‘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 of danger, while they carry this flesh and blood about them. Indeed the best of Christians here below dwell but as it were in twilight, and in some sense they may be described as persons 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 growing up to a brighter immortality, ’ let us not sleep as others do’ who are the sons and daughters of night and darkness. 1 Thess. v. 4, 5.
Motive 2. ‘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 divine and heavenly. If the eye of the soul were but open to invisible things, what lively Christians should we be? But either the winds of worldly cares rock us to sleep, or the charm of worldly pleasures soothe us into deceitful slumbers. We are too ready to indulge earthly delights, and while we dream of pleasure 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 3. ‘Many thousands have been found sleeping at the call of Christ’ Some perhaps in a profound and deadly sleep, and others in an hour of dangerous slumber. Many an acquaintance of ours has gone down to the grave, when neither they nor we thought of their dying at such a season. But as thoughtless as they were, they were never the further from the point of death; and we shudder with horror when we think what is become of their souls.
While we are young, we are ready to please ourselves with the enjoyments of life, and flatter our hopes with a long succession of them. We suppose death to be at the distance ’ of fifty or threescore miles;’ threescore years and ten is the appointed period. But alas! how few are there whose hopes are fulfilled, or whose life is extended to those dimensions? Perhaps the messenger of death is within a furlong of our dwelling; a few more steps onward, and he smites us down to the dust.
There are some beautiful verses which I have read perhaps thirty years ago, wherein the ingenious author describes the different stages of human life, under the image of a fair prospect or landscape, and death is placed by mistaken mortals, afar off, beyond them all. Since the lines return now upon my remembrance, I will repeat them here with some small alteration. They are as follows:
Life and the scenes that round it rise,
Share in the same uncertainties,
Yet still we hug ourselves with vain presage
Of future days, serene and long,
Of pleasures fresh and ever strong,
An active youth, and slow declining age.
Like a fair prospect, still we make
Things future pleasing forms to take:
First verdant meads arise and flowery fields;
Cool groves and shady copses here,
There brooks and winding streams appear,
While change of objects still new pleasures yields.
Farther, fine castles court the eye,
There wealth and honours we espy;
Beyond, a huddled mixture fills the stage,
Till the remoter distance shrouds
The plains with hills, those hills with clouds; There we place death behind old shivering age.
When death alas, perhaps too nigh,
In the next hedge doth skulking lie,
There plants his engines, thence lets fly his dart,
Which while we ramble without fear,
Will stop us in our full career;
And force us from our airy dreams to part.
How fond and vain are our imaginations, when we have seen others called away on a sudden from the early scenes of life, to promise ourselves a long continuance here! We have the same feeble bodies, the same tabernacles of clay, that others have, and we are liable to many of the same accidents or casualties: the same killing diseases are at work in our natures, and why should we imagine, or presume, that others should go so much before us?
And if we enquire of ourselves as to character or merit, or moral circumstances of any kind, and compare ourselves with those that are gone before, what foundation have we to promise ourselves a longer continuance here? Have we not the same sins, or greater, to provoke God? Are we more useful in the world than they, and do more service for his name? May not God summon us off the stage of life on a sudden, as well as others? What are we better than they? Are we not as much under the sovereign disposal of the great God as any of our acquaintance who have been seized in the flower and prime of life, and called away in an unexpected hour? And what power have we to resist the seizure, or what promise to hope that God will delay longer? Let us then no more deceive ourselves with vain imaginations, but each of us awake and bestir ourselves as though we were the next persons to be called away from this assembly, and to appear next before the Lord.
Motive 4. ‘When we are awake, we are not only fitter for the coming of our Lord to call us away by death, and fitter for his appearance to the great judgment, but we are better prepared also to attend him in every call to present duty, and more ready to meet his appearance in every providence.’ It is the Christian soldier who is ever awake and on his guard, that is only fit for every sudden appointment to new stations and services, he is more prepared for any post of danger or hazardous enterprise, and better furnished to sustain the roughest assaults. We shall be less shocked at sudden afflictions here on earth, if our souls keep heaven in view, and are ready winged for immortality. When we are fit to die we are fit to live also, and to do better service for God in whichsoever of his worlds he shall please to appoint our station. My business, 0 Father, and my joy, is to do thy will among the sons of mortality, or among the spirits of the blest on high.
Motive 5. ‘Let us remember we have slept too long already in days past, and it is but a little while that we are called to watch.’ We have worn away too much of our life in sloth and drowsiness. The ’ night is far spent’ with many of us, “the day is at hand; it is now high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed,” Rom. xiii. 11, 12. Another hour or two, ‘and the night will be at an end with us:’ Jesus the morning star is just appearing; what? ’ can we not watch one hour?’ 0 happy souls! that keep themselves awake to God in the midst of this dreaming world! Happy indeed, when our Lord shall call us out of these dusky regions, and we shall answer his call with holy joy, and spring upward to the inheritance of the saints in light! Then all the seasons of darkness, and slumbering, will be finished for ever; there is no need of laborious watchfulness in that world, where there is no flesh and blood to hang heavy upon the spirit; but the sanctified powers of the soul are all life, and immortal vigour. There is i no want of the sun-beams’ to make their day-light, or to irradiate ‘that city; the glory of God enlightens it’ with divine splendors, ’ and the Lamb is the light thereof.’ No inhabitant can sleep under such a united blaze of grace and glory. No faintings of nature, no languors or weariness are found in all that vital climate; every citizen is for ever awake and busy under the beams of that glorious day; zeal, and love, and joy, are the springs of their eternal activity, and ’ there is no night there.’
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