We should have a double eye: one eye to see that which is amiss in us, our own imperfections, thereby to carry ourselves in a perpetual humility. Another eye of faith, to see what we have in Christ, ...  Read More

Besides his Spirit, God has planted in us a conscience to call upon us, to be his vicar; a little god in us to do his office, to call upon us, direct us, check and condemn us, which in great mercy he...  Read More

There is a knocking that Christ uses in the church, his ministerial knocking. When he was here in the days of his flesh, he was a preacher and prophet himself, and now that he is ascended into heaven...  Read More

Consider the excellence of an awake Christian. When he is in his right temper, he is a prepared person, fit for all assaults. He is impregnable. Satan has nothing to do with him, for he, as it is sai...  Read More

(6) In the last place it is a thing of no small consequence, that we keep company with wakeful and faithful Christians, such as neither sleep themselves nor do willingly allow any to sleep that are n...  Read More

(5) Labour to preserve the soul in the fear of God because fear is a waking affection, yea, one of the most wakeful. Naturally we are more moved with dangers than stirred with hopes. Preserve the fea...  Read More

(3) Labour for an abundance of the Spirit of God. What makes men sleepy, and drowsy? The want of the Spirit. We are dull, and overladen with gross passions, whereby the strength sinks and fails. Chri...  Read More

To preserve the soul, especially in these drowsy times: (1) Propose to our souls, wakeful considerations. What causes our sleep but want of matters of more serious observation? None will sleep when a...  Read More

A Christian is what his heart and inward man is. Grace is at the centre, and from there it goes to the circumference. Let the church value herself by the disposition and temper of her heart. To evalu...  Read More

Let us magnify the goodness of God that God's children never totally fall from grace. Though they sleep, yet their heart is awake. The prophet Isaiah, speaking of the church and children of God said ...  Read More

The heart is often taken for the conscience in Scripture. A good conscience, called a merry heart, is 'a continual feast' (Prov. 15:15). Now, the conscience of God's children is never so sleepy, but ...  Read More

The word heart includes the whole soul, for the understanding is the heart, 'an understanding heart' (Job 38:36). To ‘lay things up in our hearts' (Luke 2:51) is memory; and to cleave in heart is to ...  Read More

(4) Sleepiness is an odious temper to God. For, does he not deserve cheerful service at our hands? Does not his greatness require that our senses be all waking? Does not his mercy deserve, that our l...  Read More

Motives against sleepiness: (1) Consider the danger of a sleepy state. The devil labours all he can to cast men into this temper, which he must do before he can make him fall into any gross sin. The ...  Read More

Signs of a spiritually sleepy state: (1) We know that sleep is creeping upon us, by comparing our present condition with our former, when we were in a more wakeful frame and the graces of God's Spiri...  Read More

What a happy condition when God's glory, the church's comfort and strength, and our own joy, meet. We ought to take notice of the works of God in creation and providence, when we see plants, stars, a...  Read More

If it is so that God accepts the performances and graces, especially the prayers of his children, let it be an argument to encourage us to be much in all holy duties. It would deaden the heart of any...  Read More

God accepts the graces of his children, and delights in them. (1) Because they are the fruit that comes from his children, his spouse, his friend. Love of the person wins acceptance of that which is ...  Read More

(3) That where once God begins, he goes on, and delights to add encouragement to encouragement, and does not only give them a stock of grace at the beginning, but also helps them to trade in grace. ...  Read More

Good things lie in us dead and bound up, unless the Spirit brings them out. There are gracious good things in the church, but they want further spreading, from this we may observe: (1) We need not on...  Read More

If the church is a separated portion, then we should walk as people of a separated condition from the world. To ensure this we must be subject to his pruning and dressing. It is so far from being an ...  Read More

In spiritual things there is a chain of causes and effects: prayer comes from faith (Rom. 10:14); faith from the hearing of the word; hearing from a preacher, by whom God by his Spirit blows upon the...  Read More

(1) We see here that Christ sends forth his Spirit, with command to all means, under the name of 'north and south wind,’ to farther the fruitfulness of his church. What winds are to the garden, that ...  Read More

A great light being near a little one, draws away and obscures the flame of the other. So it is when the affections are taken up higher to their fit object; they die unto all earthly things, while th...  Read More