to be relaxed, and your diligence to be remitted ---when you become less regular in the observance of religious duties, and allow worldly occupations to interfere with them or if you retain the form of devotion while you feel little of the power or if you live in the forgetfulness of the great truth, that at such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh-then you may understand that the words of our text apply to you, and that "it is high time to awake out of sleep." Even the best, while they continue in this world, are subject to sad declinations. The world is present, and heaven is remote; the rewards of sin are immediate, and the fruits of holiness-many of them at least-are distant; the things of time are seen, the things of eternity are invisible; the adversaries of the soul are numerous and powerful; and though the spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak, and it is weighed down by the body of this death. In the parable of the ten virgins, we are told, that" while the bridegroom tarried they all," the wise as well as the foolish, "they all slumbered and slept." The best of you, therefore, cannot be exempt from a tendency at least to fall away from your stedfastness. You may find the night long-the watch may be dreary-the master tarrieth-your exhausted nature may give way-and you may fall asleep. In the hour of all others the most awful and the most interesting to man-in the garden of Gethsemanethe three disciples could not watch for one hour; and as it was the case with them, so it may prove, in the extremity of their trials, to other followers of the Lord. There are, indeed, two cases in which the

disciples of Christ are most in danger of sleeping at their post. The first is, where there is no particular outward call to extraordinary duty, and where there is no great temptation to be resisted. In such a case as this, the Christian is in danger of sinking into a state of supineness and security, being apt to rely upon his own strength, and to forget his constant dependence upon God; and as he sees no danger to alarm, and feels as if he had no work to do, he remits his watchfulness and falls asleep. The other occasion is, where the outward works are numerous, constant, and arduouswhere the trial is protracted and severe-and, above all, where the arrows of the Almighty are within him, and the terrors of the Lord set themselves in array against him and where there is no prospect of any relief. Then, the soul of a man sometimes sinks within him, and he becomes listless and inactive from the very multitude of the labours that he ought to perform, and the troubles he has to endure. This, however, is rarer perhaps in the latter case than in the former-because the magnitude of the trial, and the difficulty of the situation, lead him naturally to seek the assistance of that God whose assistance is never sought in vain. Instances are, however, to be found in both cases, and in other cases also; and in all of them the words of the Apostle are to be applied. "It is high time to awake."

PART SECOND.

HIGH TIME TO AWAKE.

"It is high time to awake out of sleep."-ROMANS Xiii. 11.

IN discoursing from these words I proposed, in the first place, to mention in what sense men may be said to be asleep. Under this head I first showed, in regard to sinners, that they have all the characteristics of men who were asleep, inasmuch as, on the one hand, they are insensible to all the realities that exist around them-an Almighty God and a coming judgment; and on the other hand, they are wholly occupied with objects that are as delusive as the visions in a troubled sleep. And then, secondly, in regard to the righteous, I showed that they may be said to be asleep when for a time they fall from their first love, and sink into indifference, or lukewarmness, or weariness. I now proceed, as was proposed,

In the second place, to endeavour to impress this most important truth upon your mind—that it is high time" to awake out of sleep."

Whether we consider the guilt of spiritual sleep, or the danger of it--whether we consider the shortness, and consequently the value of time-the speedy approach of eternity-the mighty work that the sin

ner has to do the time in which he has to do it, constantly and quickly gliding away-the limit that is set to the long-suffering of God-and that if he sleeps a moment beyond the space that is vouchsafed to him, the consequences are irreparable for ever— when we consider all this, we cannot but feel that it is high time to awake.

Consider, first, what the sinner has to do. What he has to do! He has every thing to do. Hitherto he has done nothing. He has done worse than nothing. He has done much but all that has been done has been done amiss. He must begin with undoing all he has already done, and then he has to begin anew. He has sins to repent of, a Saviour to believe in, a cross to take up, a battle to fight, hell to escape, and heaven to pursue. When there is a work of such infinite importance, and of such overwhelming magnitude, it is surely high time to awake. Every moment increases the difficulty and the magnitude of his labour. Every moment leaves him less time to perform it. Up, then, and be doing, for a moment may cost you an eternity. Your enemies are taking advantage of your supineness-they are upon you in your weakness-they are afflicting you-your strength is departing from you-and if you delay an instant longer, you may be for ever their slave.

It is nothing against this argument that no one is sufficient for these things-that we can do nothing of ourselves that the Spirit of God must awaken us— that he must give us faith, and repentance, and righteousness--that the labourers who wrought only an hour received wages equally with those who had

borne the heat of the day—and that in one day the thief on the cross was justified, and sanctified, and glorified. All this may be, and we believe all this is, true; but it affects in nothing our representation. The work of repentance and of faith must be done if you would be saved; and now is the accepted time for it. If you embrace the present offer, and awake from the dead, the faithfulness of God is pledged, and Christ will give you life. If you neglect this work now, God is merciful and may enable you yet to do it before you die; but there is another event not less probable, and that is, that he may not; and the remotest possibility of such a tremendous alternative makes it high time to awake.

And oh, my friends, leave not your awakening till a dying day. Of that period of suffering, of sickness, and of pain, it may be truly said, that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. In regard to death-bed repentances, it is necessary that we should speak with the utmost caution and seriousness. We trust and believe that, in many instances, Christ has shewn his power to save to the uttermost, and that the thief on the cross is by no means the only monument of his mercy in death. At the same time, we believe that the experience of the world in regard to the wicked will be found to be this:-That some, by the near prospect of death, have been awakened into terror, and refused to be comforted, and given themselves up to despair, having the bitterness of the first death aggravated beyond the power of suffering by the anticipated horrors of the second That others have not only been con