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thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back, and cover that which Cometh from thee. For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee ; therefore shall thy camp be holy, that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee/ The master's eye makes the servant diligent ; the presence of a reverend man will hold us in some order. If Gehazi had known that the spirit of Elisha went with him, would he have run after Naaman for a reward ? 2 Kings v. 26 ; his pro- phetic spirit went with him. We can no more be removed from the presence of God than from our own being ; he is the continual witness and judge of our conversations ; he seeth us in secret as well as in public. Now, when the soul is habituated to this thought, how aweful and watchful shall we be ? Ps. cxix. 168, * I kept thy precepts and thy testimonies ; for all my ways are before thee.' The sense of his presence is the great ground of watchfulness. God is not so shut up within the curtain of the heavens, but that he doth see and hear all that we do or say ; yea, he knoweth our thoughts afar off.
[3.] Love to God maketh us tender of offending him, for it is a grace that studieth to please ; the soul is jealous of anything which looks like an offence to those whom we love. Others are not troubled though they sin freely in thought, foully in word, frequently in their daily practice, because an offence to God seemeth as nothing ; they have no love to God : Ps. xcvii. 10, ' Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.' It is a loathsome thing to them ; to a gracious heart it is argument enough against sin that it ' is the transgression of the law,' 1 John iii. 4 ; and he inferreth it out of love to God, ver. 1, ' Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us,' &c. They have sucli a deep apprehension of God's love to them in Christ, that it breedeth an awe upon them, or a fear to offend: Ezra ix. 13, 14, 'After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this ; shall we again break thy commandments ? ' Josh. xxiv. 31, ' Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, which he had done for Israel.' What ! offend God, who is so blessed a being, who created us out of nothing, of whose mercy we have tasted every moment, who preserveth and delivereth us continually, from whose goodness wo expect all our blessedness ! Is our deliverance by Christ of less value than all our temporal deliverances ? Will not love draw the same inferences and conclusions from it ?. Caution doth not arise out of a fear of anger, but a loathness to offend.
2. The time when this duty is to be practised ; always ; it isnever out of season. Conscience must still sit porter at the door, and ex- amine what goes in and out. If men neglect their watch but for a little while, how soon doth sin get an advantage against them. Lot, that was chaste in Sodom, miscarried in the mountains, where there was none but his own family. David, whose heart was so tender that it smote him for cutting off the lap of Saul's garment, falleth into so deep a sleep afterwards that his conscience was silent when he had defiled it with blood and lust. The tears and sorrows of many years
VeR. 14] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. 291
may perhaps not repair the mischief which one hour may bring unto you. You have need to watch after the sense of your duty hath been revived upon you. Satan loveth to snatch the prey from under Christ's own arm : ' He entered into Judas, after the sop,' John xiii. 27. After solemn duties, how soon do people miscarry ! As soon as the law was given with terrible thunderings, the people do presently miscarry by worship- ping the golden calf, Exod. xxxii. ; and the priests in the very day of their consecration, in the beginning and first day of their ministration, offered strange fire to the Lord, Lev. x. After some escape from sin we need to watch that we be not entangled therein again: 2 Pet. ii. 20, ' If after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.' As under the law, a sore rising as a boil, when it was healed, might afterward break out again, and turn to a leprosy, Lev. xiii. 18-20 ; so sins, after we seem to be healed of them, may re- turn, and make us worse than before. As Christ saith to the man cured : John v. 14, ' Behold, thou art made whole ; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.' In prosperity we need to watch ; it is hard to carry a full cup without spilling, and to live at ease and yet to keep up a due and lively sense of our duty. And in our adversity, when the course of temptation is altered, we are strangely surprised ; every condition bringeth its own snares with it : ' Ephraim is a cake not turned,' Hosea vii. 8. Those who are most advanced in a state of grace, they need still to watch : Mark xiii. 37, ' What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.' We are never past this care ; this is the great difference between christian and christian ; one is m©re watchful than another.