you enlist under the banners of Christ ; and you must expect all manner of conflicts to your dying hour.]
But you must be steadfast in your adherence to him —
[You must be " good soldiers of Jesus Christ," and never cease to fight till you have obtained the victory. Neither hopes nor fears, neither joys nor sorrows, must be suffered to alienate you from him, or to damp your zeal in his service. True it is that the Lord gives you many great and precious promises, that he will keep you, and that nothing shall ever separate you from his love d. But this is not to encourage supineness ; but rather
c John xv. 1—6. d Rom. viii. 35—39.
to make you more earnest in your application to him for pro- tection and support. With the example of Demas before you, you should never cease to fear, lest you also should " fall from your own steadfastness e," and " be corrupted from the simpli- city that is in Christ f." Aware of your danger, you must " fight the good fight of faith," and "cleave unto the Lord with full purpose of heart." " You must be faithful unto death, if ever you would obtain the crown of life."]
Stand fast also in,
II. Your dependence on him —
From this also you are in danger of being drawn —
[There is in us a continual proneness to self-confidence and self-dependence. We are ever ready to lean to our own un- derstanding to guide us our own righteousness to jus- tify us our own strength to preserve us It is a
great matter to have the soul brought to a simple reliance upon the Lord Jesus Christ for every thing.]
But we must live altogether by faith on Christ —
[He is " Head over all things to his Church," and has all fulness of blessings treasured up in him for our useg. " He is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifi- cation, and redemption;" and from him must we receive them all11, that in, and by, and for all, His name may be glo- rified l ■ — ]
Nor must any thing be suffered to weaken,
III. Your expectation of his future advent —
To that day there is a particular reference in the preceding contextk —
We are apt to lose sight of that awful day —
[This is evident, from the remissness and negligence with which the things of eternity are pursued. Could we be dull
and slothful with that day before our eyes? Could the
allurements or terrors of the world have any influence upon our hearts, if we knew and saw that the Judge was at the door? ]
But we must stand continually in a state of pre- paration for it —
[To wait for Christ's second coming is the habit of mind to which every believer is brought1 : and in proportion as it is formed in the mind, is the progress which we have made in the
e 2 Pet. iii. 17. f 2 Cor. xi. 3.
e Eph. i. 22, 23. Col. i. 19. * j0hn i. 16.
* Isai. xlv. 24, 25. * Phil. iii. 20, 21. » 1 Thess. i. 9, 10.