Part 220

“_Watch_;” that is, be upon your guard, and keep your graces in continual exercise: For as when we are commanded to watch unto prayer, it signifies that we should continue instant in that duty; so when we are required to watch in general, it means that we should put on the whole armour of GOD, and live every day as though it was our last. And O! that the LORD may now enable me to lift up my voice like a trumpet! For had I a thousand tongues, or could I speak so loud that the whole world might hear me, I could not sound a more useful alarm than that which is contained in the text. WATCH therefore, my brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of GOD in CHRIST JESUS, watch; be upon your guard; awake, ye that sleep in the dust: for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. Perhaps to-day, perhaps this midnight, the cry may be made: “for in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the trump is to sound.” However, supposing the final day of judgment may yet be a great way off, the day of death is certainly near at hand: for what is our life? “It is but a vapour,” but a span long, soon passeth it away, and we are gone. Blessed be GOD, we are all here well; but who, out of this great multitude, dares say, I shall go home to my house in safety? Who knows, but whilst I am speaking, GOD may commission his ministring spirits immediately to call some of you away by a sudden stroke, to give an account with what attention you have heard this sermon. You know, my brethren, some such instances we have lately had. And what angel or spirit hath assured us, that some of you shall not be the next? “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man will come:” And it is chiefly for this reason, that GOD has hidden the day of our deaths from us. For since I know not but I may die to-morrow, why, O my soul, may each of us say, wilt thou not watch to-day? Since I know not but I may die the next moment, why wilt thou not prepare for dying this? Many such reflections as these, my brethren, croud in upon my mind. At present, blessed be the LORD, who delights to magnify his strength in a poor worm’s weakness, I am at a stand, not so much about what I shall say, as what I shall leave unsaid. My belly, like _Elihu_’s, is, as it were, full of new wines; “out of the abundance of my heart my mouth speaketh.” The seeing so great a multitude standing before me; a sense of the infinite majesty of that GOD in whose name I preach, and before whom I as well as you must appear, to give an account; and the uncertainty there is whether I shall live another day, to speak to you any more: these considerations, especially the presence of GOD, which I now feel upon my soul, furnishes me with so much matter, that I scarce know where to begin, or where to end my application. However, for method-sake, by the divine assistance, I will branch it into three particulars.