royal solemnities, the Scripture calls pavraoias, phantasies, Acts xxv. 23. A man will not readily think so while he is in them. Somnium narrare vigilantis est. We do not perceive the vanity of our dreams, and know that they are so, till we be awaked. Sometimes in a dream, a man will have such a thought that it is but a dream, yet doth he not thoroughly see the folly thereof, but goes on in it. The natural man may have sometimes a glance of such thoughts, that all these things he is either turmoiling or delighting in, are vanity and nothing to the purpose; yet, he awakes not, but raves on still in them; he shifts a little, turns on his bed as a door on its hinges, but turns not off, does not rise.

But the spiritual-minded Christian, who is indeed awake, and looks back on his former thoughts and ways, Oh how does he disdain himself, and all his former high fancies that he was most pleased with, finding them dreams! Oh what a fool, what a wretch was I, while my head was full of such stuff, building castles in the air, imagining and catching at such gains, and such preferments and pleasures, and either they still running before me, and I could not overtake them, or, if I thought I did, what have I now, when I see what it is, and find that I have embraced a shadow, false hopes, and fears, and joys! He thinks he hath eaten, and his soul is empty. Isa. xxix. 8. And you that will sleep on, may; but sure I am, when you come to your death-bed, if possibly you awake then, then shall you look back, with sad regret, upon whatsoever you most esteemed and gloried in under the sun. While they are coming towards you, they have some shew; but, as a dream that is past, when these gay things are flown by, then we see how vain they are. As that luxurious king who caused to be painted on his tomb two fingers, as sounding one upon another, with that word, All is not worth so much, Non tanti est. I know not how men make a shift to satisfy themselves; but, take a sober and awakened Christian, and set him in the midst of the best of all things that are here, his heart would burst with despair of satisfaction, were it not for a hope that

he hath, beyond all that this poor world either attains or si seeking after, and that hope is, indeed, the dawning of the day that is here spoken of.

It is time to awake, says he; your salvation is nearer than when ye believed. That bright day you look for, is hastening forward; it is nearer than when you began to believe. The night is far spent, the gross darkness is already past, some day-light there is, and it is every moment growing, and the perfect, full morning-light of it is very near.

[Observation.] Grace, and the Gospel that works it, compared with the dark night of nature, is the day, and it is often so called: the Apostle here calls it so, Let us walk honestly as in the day. But yet, that same light of the Gospel shining to us in the word, and within us by the Spirit, is but the appearance or approaching of the day, a certain pledge of it, yea, a kind of beginning of it, telling us that it is near. It is one and the same light, and where it enters into any soul, it makes sure that eternal full day to it, that it shall not be disappointed of, more than the day can go back, and the sun fail to rise when the dawn is begun. And this begun light is still growing clearer, and tending to the perfect day. Prov. iv. 18. And at the first peep or appearance of it, so much it is, that the soul is called to awake and arise, and put on day-clothes, and apply itself to the actions of the day; and that is the thing the Apostle here presses by it.

Oh, the blessed Gospel, revealing God in Christ, and calling up sinners to communion with Him, dispelling that black night of ignorance and accursed darkness that otherwise had never ended, but passed on to an endless night of eternal misery! Says not Zacharias with good reason in his song, that it was through the tender mercy of God that this dayspring from on high did visit us?

Now, says the Apostle, this day appearing, it is time to awake. And the longer it is since it began to appear, and the clearer the light grows, the more high time is it to awake

VOL. III.

X

and rise, and cast off night-clothes and night-works, works of darkness, and to put on garments, yea, armour of light. He that is a soldier, his garments are not on till his arms be on and his sword about him; then he is ready: especially in a time and posture of war, and the enemy lying nigh, even round about him; and this is every Christian's state while he is here. An armour of light, not only strong and useful, but comely and graceful, fit to walk abroad in, bright shining armour; as your old poets describe their champions, dazzling their enemies' eyes.

And thus apparelled, we are to behave ourselves suitably, to walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness. That is a night-work, As the Apostle hath it, 1 Thes. v. 7. To stagger and reel in the streets in day-light, to be drunk in the morning, is most shameful: so is that spirit of drunkenness as unbeseeming a Christian; to see them hurrying and justling one another, as drunk with love of earthly things, and their spirits by that besotted and unfitted for spiritual things, that they find no pleasure in them.

Chambering and wantonness. All impure, lascivious conversation, how vile are these, and unfit for the light! Even Nature is ashamed to be seen in these things, in the natural light of the day; much more will Grace in the spiritual light of the Gospel.

Strife and envy. As shuffles and hot quarrels are most of all unseemly in the streets in day-light, so, the quarrels and jarrings of Christians are very shameful before the light wherein they walk. The Gospel of Christ, the grand doctrine thereof, is meekness and love. But Oh, where are they, those graces that so abound in the doctrine of Christianity, and yet are so scarce in the lives of Christians? Where are they who look gladly on the good of others, and bear evils and injuries from their neighbours patiently, and repay evil with good? Thus it ought to be; but, on the contrary, how ready are the most to part on the least occasions, to bite and snarl at each other! There is more still of the spirit of the dragon, than

of the dove. My brethren, remember and consider, that the Gospel-light shines amongst us, and that more clearly than in former times, and more clearly than to most people in the world in these times: and do not outface and affront the blessed light with the accursed works of darkness. You might have been profane in former times, or in some other place, at a cheaper rate.

Know, that if this glorious light do not break off your course of sin, it will increase your load of judgment. The heaviest of all condemnations, is to live in darkness, and to live and die in it, in the midst of light. Amongst all your desperate accursed wishes, this shall be one, and a chief one, that either the Son of God had never come into the world, or that you had never heard of him.

Much of what we aim at, were gained, if Christians could be brought to consider who they are, and to walk like themselves: it would raise them above the base pleasures of sin, and the snares of the world. The way of life is on high to the just there is a holy loftiness, a disdain of all impure, sordid ways. It is said of Jehoshaphat, that his heart was lift up in the ways of the Lord. 2 Chron. xvii. 6. As a vain, self-conceited lifting up of the heart is the great enemy of our welfare; (as it is written of another, even of a good king, Hezekiah, that his heart was lift up, therefore was wrath upon him ;) so, there is a happy exaltation of the heart, when it is raised in God, to despise all communion with the unholy, and the unholy ways of the world. This, my brethren, is that which I would were wrought in you by the consideration of our holy calling. We are called to holiness, and not to uncleanness.-Ye are the children of the light and of the day. 1 Thes. iv. 7; v. 5. Base night ways, such as cannot endure the light, do not become you. O that comeliness which the saints should study, that decorum which they should keep in all their ways, voxovws, one action like another, and all like Christ, living as in the light. They that converse with the best company, such persons are

obliged to more decency in apparel. We live in the light, in the company of angels, of God, and Jesus Christ; and therefore should not act any thing that is low or mean, unbeseeming the rank we keep, and the presence of those with whom we associate. When the king passes through the country in progress, they who see him seldom, being either to attend him in his way, or to receive him into their houses, will labour to have all things in the best order they can for the time; but they that live at court, and are daily in the king's presence, are constantly court-like in their habit and carriage, and all about them. O followers of the Lamb, let your garments be always white; yea, let Him be your garment; clothe yourselves with Himself; have your robes made of his spotless fleece.

Put on the Lord Jesus. No resemblance is more usual than that of people's customs to their clothes, their habitudes to their habits. This the Apostle used in the foregoing words, Put on the [furniture, or] armour of light, having cast off the works of darkness, as clothes of darkness, nightclothes. And the word, walking decently, has something of the same resemblance contained in it. And here we have the proper beauty and ornament of Christians, even the Lord Jesus, recommended to them under the same notion, Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Him we put on by faith, and are clothed with him as our righteousness. We come unto our Father in our Elder Brother's perfumed garments, and so obtain the blessing which he, in a manner, was stripped of for our sakes. He did undergo the curse, and was made a curse for our sakes: so the Apostle speaks of him, Gal. iii. 13. We put him on, as the Lord our righteousness, and are made the righteousness of God in him. This investiture is first, when our persons are made acceptable, and we come into court. But there is another putting of him on, in the conformity of holiness, which always accompanies the former; and that is it which is here meant. And this I declare unto you, that whosoever does not thus put him on, shall find