ed themselves their graves
upon that earth on which they have lain long under heavy fetters, yet at
this hour are asleep, though they be yet working upon their own graves
by their own weight? He that hath seen his friend die to-day, or knows
he shall see it to-morrow, yet will sink into a sleep between. I cannot,
and oh, if I be entering now into eternity, where there shall be no more
distinction of hours, why is it all my business now to tell clocks? Why
is none of the heaviness of my heart dispensed into mine eye-lids, that
they might fall as my heart doth? And why, since I have lost my delight
in all objects, cannot I discontinue the faculty of seeing them by
closing mine eyes in sleep? But why rather, being entering into that
presence where I shall wake continually and never sleep more, do I not
interpret my continual waking here, to be a parasceve and a preparation
to that?

XV. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, I know (for thou hast said it) that _he that keepeth
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep_:[214] but shall not that Israel,
over whom thou watchest, sleep? I know (for thou hast said it) that
there are men whose damnation sleepeth not;[215] but shall not they to
whom thou art salvation sleep? or wilt thou take from them that
evidence, and that testimony that they are thy Israel, or thou their
salvation? _Thou givest thy beloved sleep_:[216] shall I lack that seal
of thy love? _You shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid_:[217]
shall I be outlawed from that protection? Jonah slept in one dangerous
storm,[218] and thy blessed Son in another;[219] shall I have no use, no
benefit, no application of those great examples? _Lord, if he sleep, he
shall do well_,[220] say thy Son's disciples to him of Lazarus; and
shall there be no room for that argument in me? or shall I be open to
the contrary? If I sleep not, shall I not be well in their sense? Let me
not, O my God, take this too precisely, too literally; _There is that
neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes_,[221] says thy wise
servant Solomon; and whether he speak that of worldly men, or of men
that seek wisdom, whether in justification or condemnation of their
watchfulness, we cannot tell: we can tell that there are men that cannot
sleep till they have done mischief,[222] and then they can; and we can
tell that the rich man cannot sleep, because his abundance will not let
him.[223] The tares were sown when the husbandmen were asleep[224]; an