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 Spirit he hath 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 and importunate prayer. Yet in my text as well as in other 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 divine 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 time is, that the Lord will come. And again, chapter xiv. 38. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. Trust not in your own strength and sufficiency, for the glorious change to be wrought in your sinful hearts, and yet neglect not your own labours and restless endeavours under a pretence, that it is God's work, and not yours. Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light; Eph. v. 14.

Nor should frail dying creatures in their youngest years, delay this work one day, nor one hour, since the consequences of being found asleep when Christ calls, are terrible indeed. We are beset with mortality all around us; the seeds of disease and dissolution are working within us from our very birth and cradle, ever since sin entered into our natures; and we should ever be in readiness to remove hence, since we are never secure from the summons of heaven, the stroke of death, and the demands of the grave.

There was a lovely boy, the son of the Shunamite, who was given to his mother in a miraculous way, and when he was in the field among the reapers, he cried out, My head, my head; he was carried home inmediately, and in a few hours, died in his mother's bosom; 2 Kings iv. 18. Who would have imagined, that head-ache should have been death, and that in so short a time too? This is almost the case which we lament at present; the head-ache was sent but a few days before, nor was the pain very intense, nor the appearance dangerous, yet it became the fatal, though unexpected fore-runner of death.

This providence is an awful warning-piece to all her young acquaintance, to be ready for a sudden removal; for she was of a healthy make, and seemed to stand at as great distance from the gates of death as any of you: But the firmest constitution of human nature is born with death in it. From every age, and every spot of ground, and every moment of time, there are short and sudden ways of descent to the grave. Trap doors, if I may

use so low a metaphor, are always under us, and a thousand unseen avenues to the regions of the dead. A malignant fever strikes the strongest nature, with a mortal blast, at the command of the great author and disposer of life. My youngest hearers may be called away from the earth by the next pain that seizes them. Nothing but religion, early religion and sincere godliness, can give you hope in youthful death, or leave a fragrant savour on your name, or memory, among those that survive.

II. If such blessedness as I have described, belong to every. watchful christian at the hour of death, then it may not be improper here to take notice of "some peculiar advantages, which attend those who shake off the deadly sleep of sin in their younger years, and are awake early to God and religion.”

1. They have much fewer sins to mourn over on a deathbed, and they prevent much bitter repentence for youthful iniquities. Holy Job was a man of distinguished piety, and God himself pronounces of him, that there was none like him in all the earth; Job. i. 18. but it is a question, whether his most early. days were devoted to God, and whether be was so watchful over his behaviour in that dangerous season of life, for he makes a heavy complaint in his addresses to God; Job xiii. 26. Thou writest better things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. The sooner we begin to be awake to holiness, the more of these follies and sorrows are prevented = Happy those who have the fewest of them to embitter their following lives, or make a death-bed painful!

2. Young persons have fewer attachments to the world, and the persons and things of it, which are round about them, and are more ready to part with it when their souls are united to God by an early faith and love. They have not yet entered into so numerous engagements of life, nor dwelt long enough here to have their hearts grown so fast on to creatures, which usually make the parting-stroke so full of anguish and smarting sorrow. A child can much more easily ascend to heaven and leave a parent behind, without that tender and painful solicitude, which a dying parent has for the welfare of a surviving child. The surrender of all mortal interests at the call of God, is much more easy when our souls are not tied to them by so many strings, nor united by so many of the softer endearments of nature, and where grace has taught us to practise an early weaning from all temporal comforts, and a little loosened our hearts from them by the faith of things eternal.

3. Those that have been awake betimes to godliness, give peculiar honours to the gospel at death, and leave this testimony to the divine religion of Jesus, that it was able to subdue passion. and appetite in that season of life, when they are usually strongest and most unruly. They give peculiar credit and glory to the

christian name, and the gospel, which has gained them so many victories over the enemies of their salvation, at that age wherein multitudes are the captives of sin, and slaves to folly and vanity.

4. Those christians who are awake to God in their carly years, leave more happy and powerful examples of living and dying to their young companions and acquaintance. It is the temper of every age of life, to be more influenced and affected by the practice of persons of the same years. Sin has fewer excuses to make in order to shield itself from the reproof of such examples, who have renounced it betimes; and virtue carries with it a more effectual motive to persuade young sinners to piety and goodness, when it can point to its votaries of the same age, and in the same circumstances of life. "Why may not this be practised by you, as well as by your companions round about you of the same age?" But I must hasten to the last reflection.

III. When we mourn the death of friends who were prepared for an early summons, let their preparation be our support." Blessed be God, they were not found sleeping! While we drop our tears upon the grave of any young christian, who was awake and alive to God, that blessedness which Christ himself pronounces upon them, is a sweet cordial to mingle with our bitter sorrows, and will greatly assist to dry up the spring of them. The idea of their piety, and their approbation in the sight of God, is a balm to heal the wound, and give present ease to the heart-ache.

We are ready to run over their virtues, and spread abroad their amiable qualities in our thoughts, and then with seeming reason, we give a loose to the mournful passion; whereas all these, when set in a true light, are real ingredients towards our relief.

We lament the loss of our departed friend, when we review that capacious and uncommon power of memory which the God of nature had given her, and which was so well furnished with a variety of human and divine knowledge, and was stored with a rich treasure of the word of God, so that if providence had called her into a more public appearance, she might have stood, up in the world as a burning and a shining light, so far as her sex and station required. This furniture of the mind seems indeed to be lost in death and buried in the grave; but we give in too much to the judgment of sense; did not this extensive knowledge lay a foundation for her early piety? And did it not by this means, prepare ber for a more speedy removal to a higher school of improvement, and a world of sublimer devotion? And does she not shine there among brighter and better company?

We mourn again for our loss of a person so valuable, when We think of that general calmness and sedateness of soul which

she possessed in a peculiar degree, so that she was not greatly elevated or depressed by common accidents or occurrences; but this secured her from the rise of unruly passions, those stormý powers of nature, which sometimes sink us into guilt and distress, and make us unwilling and afraid of the sudden summons of Christ, lest he should find us under these disorders.

We think of her firmness of spirit, and that steady resolution which joined with a natural reserve, was a happy guard against many of the forward follies and dangers of youth, and proved a successful defence against some of the allurements and. temptations of the gayer years of life: And then we mourn afresh, that a person so well formed for growing prudence and virtue, should be so suddenly snatched away from amongst us. But this steady and dispassionate frame of soul, well improved, by religion and divine grace, became an effectual means to preserve her youth more unblemished, and made her spirit fitter for. the heavenly world, where nothing can enter that is defiled, and whose delights are not tumultuous as ours are on earth; but all is a calm and rational state of joy.

We lament yet further when we think of her native goodness and unwillingness to displease: But goodness is the very femper of that region to which she is gone, and she is the fitter companion for the inhabitants of a world of love.

We lament that such a pattern of early piety should be taken from the earth when there are so few practisers of it, especially anong the youth of our degenerate age, and in plentiful circumstances of life. But it is a matter of high thankfulness to God, who endowed her with those valuable qualities, and trained her up so soon for a world so much better than ours is. Let our sorrow for the deceased be changed into devout praises to divine grace. Let us imitate the holy language of St. Paul to the Thessalonians and say, "We are comforted even at her grave, in all our afflictions and distress, by the remembrance of her faith and piety. What sufficient thanks can we render unto God, upon her account, for all the joy wherewith we rejoice, for her sake, before our God, night and day praying exceedingly, that we may see her face in the state of perfection? And may God himself even our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to the happy world where she dwells," 1 Thess. iii. 7-12. The imitation of what was excellent in her life, and watchful readiness to follow her in death, are the best honours we can pay her memory, and the wisest improvement of the present providence. May the Spirit of grace teach us these lessons, and make us all learn them with power, that when our Lord Jesus shall come to call us hence by death, or shall appear with all his saints in the great rising day, we may be found among his wakeful servants, and partake of the promised blessedness! Amen.

DISCOURSE III.-Surprize in Death.

Mark xiii. 35, 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 family, 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, verse 35. Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning.

Though the ultimate design of these parables, and the 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 recompence 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 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 to their behaviour here. The solemn and awful warning, which my text gives us concerning the return of Christ to judgment, may be 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 a-kin to this, I shewed, that there was distinction to be made between the dead sleep of a sinner, and the 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

Io a funeral sermon for Mrs. Sarah Abney, on Luke xii. 37. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.