encouragements high. You have exceeding great and precious promises, and examples of the noblest and most animating kind. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider Christ Jesus, and the great cloud of witnesses with which ye are compassed about. Watch ye; stand fast in the faith; quit you like men; be strong.

5. Consider that ye have an omniscient eye continually upon you. We may contrive to escape or conceal ourselves from the scrutiny and observation of friends and foes—of parents, ministers, fellow-Christians, and, what is still more difficult, of Satan; but there is one eye which we cannot elude, and which is fixed upon us every moment, by night and by day, in solitude and in society, in the church and in the world. O that we could live under the habitual belief and impression of this strange but undoubted truth! Then would there be little danger of our falling into slothfulness and carnal security. "These things, saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire; I know thy works: be watchful."

6. You know not how soon you may be called upon to give in your accounts, and to appear before the bar of your Judge. This solemn consideration is often brought forward as an enforcement to the exhortation in our text. It is repeatedly urged in the context, " But of that day and that hour knoweth no man. Take ye heed; watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is. Watch ye therefore; for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning, lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping." And in the book of Revelation, he saith, "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments." That "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account of the deeds done in the body," is a most undoubted truth, and a truth which ought to excite us to unwearied diligence, and unremitting watchfulness. Such was its effect on the minds of the apostles; and should it exert a weaker influence on ours ? "It is appointed to men once to die, and after death the judgment." We know not what time shall elapse

between our death and the general judgment; but we know that no change can take place on our state for eternity between these two periods; so that, as to all practical purposes, we should view them as coincident. How solicitous, then, should we be to be ready for this event, though we were assured that our lives should extend to threescore and ten, or fourscore years!

But have we any security for this? Ah, no! So far from it, nothing is more uncertain. We know not the hour, the day, or the year. This is carefully concealed from us; and why? For this, among other reasons, that we may watch, and be always ready. How many striking and loud warnings of the uncertainty of time do we receive in the course of providence, by the sudden removal, not only of the aged, the infirm, and sickly, but of the young, the healthy, and the strong—our equals or juniors-our intimate acquaintance-those who had spoken to us the word of the Lord, or to whom we had spoken it, who had less appearance of being dying men than many of us have, and perhaps had as little thought of dying as the most careless person present has at this moment. In such events the Lord's voice crieth, and the men of wisdom understand it. But, alas! where are they? How few hear the rod, and him that hath appointed it! Such warnings, when they occur, form the subject of talk-often vain, idle, and unprofitable talk-for a little; but within a few days, a few short days, they are forgotten, and the thoughts of preparation for death are lost in the bustle of worldly business, perhaps drowned in the intoxicating cup of pleasure. We are like persons in a deep sleep, who have been roused by a sudden noise: they start up, gaze round, and eagerly listen. But the noise has ceased: they lay themselves down again, and sink into a profounder sleep than that from which they had been awakened.

In this manner some sleep on until they 66 open their their eyes in hell, being in torments "-open their eyes to shut them no more for ever, in a state in which they shall invoke sleep, but it shall fly from them. Others may be aroused by the harbingers of the king of terrors, but, like the foolish virgins in

the parable, too late for the preparations which they require, and so distracted with terrors, that they "cannot find their hands." Even genuine Christians, in consequence of their being sinfully off their guard, may be taken by surprise, thrown into alarm, and hurried in great confusion into the presence of their Lord, like persons overtaken by a storm, and caught up by the whirlwind, who are amazed to find themselves, they know not how, in a place of refuge and safety.

What is the improvement which we should make of such warnings? Surely, to be ready for the call whenever it may be addressed to us. And this preparation is two-fold—habitual and actual-as to state and as to exercise. That person is habitually prepared for death who has acquainted himself with God and is at peace with him, whose sin is pardoned, whose nature is renewed, and who has a relish for the enjoyments of heaven. That person is actually prepared who knows whom he has believed, who is living near unto God, maintaining intercourse with heaven by faith and prayer, who is occupying the talents which God hath given him to his glory, and doing the work which God hath assigned him.

your

Christ says, "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour Lord doth come." And again, to the same persons he says, "Be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."† This intimates that more is necessary than watchfulness. We wake in vain unless we make ready. We have our Lord to attend, and must be attired-we have a cause to be tried, and must have it ordered— we have a reckoning to make, and must have our accounts prepared-we have an inheritance to receive, and must be meet for it.

"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." He is the resurrection and the life; and the hour now is, when under the gospel "the dead shall hear his voice and live." Turn not a deaf ear to his entreating voice, lest he give you up, and say to you, "Sleep on now and take your rest." Resist not, quench not the

motions of the good Spirit of God, lest, grieved and wearied out, he withdraw from you.

Let not the saints sleep as do others. Awake to righteousness. Cast off that sluggishness which may have fallen on your spirits. Carelessness, lukewarmness, and security, are highly unbecoming those who are the people of God and heirs of glory. "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light." I do not call on you to entertain or give way to a slavish fear of death; from this Christ died to deliver you. But keep your death in your eye; look it in the face; meditate on it: -and remember that while it is of all things the most certain, yet as to the time of it, nothing is more awfully uncertain. Let your loins be girt, and your lamps burning. "For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." *

* 1 Thes. v. 7, 9.

SERMON XII.

THE FEAR OF DEATH.*

HEB. ii. 15.

AND DELIVER THEM WHO THROUGH FEAR OF DEATH WERE ALL THEIR LIFETIME SUBJECT TO BONDAGE."

THERE may be a tacit allusion in the preceding verse, to the deliverance of the Israelites from the danger to which they were exposed on the night before they left Egypt. "Through faith," says the apostle in another place, "Moses kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them."+ The Jews call the angel who went through the land on that fearful occasion, Samael, or the Destroyer. That angel had the power of death for a night, and he was prevented, by the appointed means, from touching the first-born of Israel. But the devil has been a murderer from the beginning; and Christ, our passover, not only foiled him by plucking the prey from his teeth, but he destroyed the destroyer-stripped him of his deadly weaponsand caused his power to cease by removing the foundation of it in the expiation of sin: It may be in reference to this event, therefore, that our apostle says, "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil."

The same allusion may be kept up in the words of the text. The children of Israel had been held in a state of grievous oppression by the Egyptians; but previous to their deliverance they were brought into a new species of bondage, through fear of death. In this state of mind must they have continued, more

*Delivered before the Communion, May, 1826.

† Heb. xi. 28.