ed with many more of his mighty works, than they of Chorazin and Bethsaida. We know that He was crucified for our sins, rose again for our justification, ascended into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of the Father; interceding for us, and for the acceptance of our prayers. We know, or we might know if we would duly use our privileges, that through Him our sins are now actually forgiven; that we are free from sin, and have open to us a fountain of help, sufficient to confirm us in all holiness of life. Knowing as we do all this, and all the duties which his apostles have enlarged upon for the edification of the church, let us take heed that we know it to our soul's health. Let us examine whether it work in us that repentance and faith, that amendment of life and devotion of heart, which it would have wrought, as our Saviour tells us, in the most profligate of the heathen. For if it do not, if we know without practice, if we boast that we believe, and are all the while lovers of this world, more than lovers of

shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for us.

SERMON XIX.

CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS.

MATTH. Xxiv. 44.

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

THIS text seems to express one chief condition of the trial of man; we know not, namely, when it will end. We know neither the end of the world, when Christ shall come to judgment, nor do we know, what to those who die first is nearly the same thing, when the end of our own lives will be. This latter I call nearly the same thing; because there can be no doubt that the moment of death will be in truth to every one the moment of judgment; the soul either having no sense of any time in the interval, or else experiencing misery or bliss, according to the sentence which

then very plainly asserted, that at such an hour as we think not the Son of man cometh. And we apply the saying chiefly in this sense, that the end of life, and the sentence of judgment, come upon men not when they are apt to expect, but at some other period, either sooner or later, according to the disposal of God's providence. And from the consideration of this important truth, we propose to enforce the practical conclusion, "Therefore be ye also ready."

I. Now in the face of this assertion of our Lord, men commonly think, and speak, and act, as if they did know, at least in some degree, when the Son of man would come; as if they had some certainty as to the day and the hour when they should be summoned to hear his sentence. They act at least as if they were sure it would not be yet for a while. They speak, and, I fear, commonly think, as if they were certain of some fair notice or warning, some protracted sickness, some symptoms of old age, which would afford them space for getting ready, and which justify them at

present in putting off to repent. And here I would ask every one of you, whether you are not in your consciences aware of many points, in which you are not now ready, in which you purpose to be more ready hereafter, but in which you are tempted to put off getting ready by the hope of a more convenient season?

If such be a very common, a very delusive hope, I would have you set against it the right consideration of the doctrine in the text before us. That doctrine is, that

we know neither the day nor the hour of our Lord's coming, nay more, that He will of a certainty come at an hour we think not of. Not only we do not know it, but we have a false expectation concerning it.

He will come at a time when we think He will not come. He will take us by surprise. And the very nature of our trial He makes in some sort to depend on this uncertainty we are under as to the period when it will end. Else indeed, under the gracious dispensation of the Gospel, where repentance and faith are accepted, through Christ, if man could be sure of any fixt