Self-Denial the Test of Religious Earnestness
“Now it is high time to awake out of sleep.” Rom. 13:11.
By “sleep,” in this passage, St. Paul means a state of insensibility to things as they really are in God’s sight. When we are asleep, we are absent from this world’s action, as if we were no longer concerned in it. It goes on without us, or, if our rest be broken, and we have some slight notion of people and occurrences about us, if we hear a voice or a sentence, and see a face, yet we are unable to catch these external objects justly and truly; we make them part of our dreams, and pervert them till they have scarcely a resemblance to what they really are; and such is the state of men as regards religious truth. God is ever Almighty and All-knowing. He is on His throne in heaven, trying the reins and the hearts; and Jesus Christ, our