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SERMON XXVII.

WATCH UNTO PRAYER.

1 ST. PETER, iv. 7, 8.

"The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves; for charity shall cover the multitude of sins."

ST. PETER, writing his Epistle no long time before Jerusalem and the Jewish Commonwealth were decreed to come to an end, when trouble would come with it, and sundry kinds of death abound, warns the Disciples of what was in store for them, and advises them concerning the nature of the preparation they should make to meet the storm that was gathering. But we may presume that he had an eye to something beyond this; and that whilst he was throwing out these warnings, and offering this advice to the generation then alive, and with a reference to the destruction of their city which was at hand, he was offering warning and advice to future generations also-to whom his Epistles were addressed no less -touching a still more awful ruin that all mankind would be concerned in, the ruin of the whole world; and the way they were to prepare to meet that and the judgment which should come after it. It was with this double view that our

Lord spake in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew. His attention is there drawn to the temple and its buildings; and, accordingly in the earlier part of that chapter, He is represented as declaring beforehand the calamity that was coming upon it in common with Jerusalem at large-the whole being to fall before a victorious foe; and then, His mind as it were carried on by a kindred subject, He proceeds, in the latter part of the chapter, to tell of the day, when in like manner the whole earth should be dissolved, and man stand before his Maker to receive according to the things done in the body. I say, therefore, it may be presumed that St. Peter's address in the words of my text goes upon something of the same principle-and that whilst he says "the end of all things is at hand," in one sense of the Holy City, he says the same in another sense of the whole earth; and in both senses, advises those to whom he speaks to provide against the hour when this desolation shall come, by being sober and watching unto prayer and having charity among themselves.

The advice and warning with regard to Jerusalem seems to have been taken. The Christians did as they were told to do; they lived upon their guard, watched the signs of the times, and spying their opportunity, before the net of God's vengeance actually dropped upon Jerusalem, made their escape out of that devoted city, crossed the Jordan, and retiring to a town, Pella by name, on the other side its borders, lived and prospered; whilst the guilty and hardened inhabitants of the capital, that remained within its walls, perished by a signal and most bloody overthrow. The advice and warning with regard to the final destruction of the world, it remains for us to avail ourselves of that event being yet in the womb of time. And in order that we may be led to ponder its vast consequences, and be wise in time,

I have selected for my text a passage from the First Epistle of St. Peter, which we cannot hear without perceiving the solemn spirit in which it appeals to us. "The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity amongst yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins."

There is a delusion upon us about the lasting nature of this world. I suppose if we were told that fifty years hence this earth would be broken up and burnt, and we were satisfied of the truth of this prediction, we should not find ourselves very careful or troubled about our portions in it now. Men would not then be very anxious about their interest in it-whether it was more or whether it was less-seeing that fifty years would level all distinctions and reduce every acre of it to dust and ashes. But where is the difference, in point of fact, whether the earth be dissolved with respect to us, or we be dissolved with respect to the earth? Fifty years will see most of us out. Fifty years will reduce us to ashes and dust; and though the earth will remain longer, it will remain no longer to us, or for our use. It would be a matter of no concern to a man on the point of death to be told that all nature was upon the point of dying too—that the heavens were on the point of running up like a scroll, and the earth on the point of melting with fervent heat-for he would feel that under any circumstances he had done with the world; and that it could make no difference whatever to him, whether his spirit departed from him while all things were subsisting, or in the general wreck. He would feel that he was going to a receptacle to which the ruin of the earth could not attain; and, whether consigned to the pit, or laid up in God's bosom, was beyond the reach of this world and all that appertains unto it. Therefore, I say, practically there is no difference to us, whether the earth be dissolved in fifty

years, or we ourselves be dissolved in fifty years; for in one case, just as well as in the other, the end of all things is at hand. But that fifty years will see most of us out, who can doubt who looks about him and sees how busy death is,or who looks upon himself and sees how years are undermining him? No man can help feeling—and feeling the more, the more he advances in life-that with respect to himself "the end of all things is at hand."

Shape your course then, says the Apostle, accordingly. Prepare yourselves for the event,-the event which you` acknowledge is sure and near. And first be sober- -which means, in this passage of St. Peter, take a sober view of all things here below. Be not over elated with any thing this world has to give-be not cast down unduly about anything this world can take away. Let not your heart anchor on it-let not your eagerness grasp at it-let not your rest be set up in it-count it not as your home-regard your progress in it as a pilgrimage, and no more. Sober your estimate of it, all the while you are in it, by thinking how short a time it will last to you; how soon it must be resigned; how nothing of it can follow you to the grave, save the virtuous use you have made of it.

But as these reflections must be sanctified by God in order to their sinking deep-as the carnal and worldly heart, though aware (for how can it help being aware?) of all these facts, yet still derives from them no sobering influence-add to this disposition of your thoughts and forebodings, prayer; "watch unto prayer," says the Apostle That will help you surprisingly to a conviction that the end of all things is at hand, and to acting upon that conviction. The signs of the perishable nature of things around you will not of themselves work in you that conviction without God's Spirit to be sought for and had by prayer-seconding

those signs and stamping them in your minds and making them dwell there. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," is David's prayer. He might be taught that his days were numbered by a hundred things that he felt and saw, in a natural way; but, in order that such teaching might make him "apply his heart unto wisdom," it was necessary that God should sanctify the moral; and that God would do so, he counted a fit object of his prayer to Him.

Besides, the very nature of prayer tends to impress us with the feeling that the end of all things is at hand, and so to make us sober-for when we pray, we send forth our thoughts, as it were, out of this world, to wander through eternity-we withdraw ourselves for the moment from earth, and transplant ourselves to a region which shall last after earth is no more. When we pray, we acknowledge by the very act that there is another and invisible world to which our thoughts are despatched; that our interest here is fugitive and passing; and that an interest elsewhere must be made in time, which will endure when time is at an end. And the value of prayer in producing these impressions is very plain, if we will but observe how it is with a man who abandons

the advantages of prayer. Look at such a man, and see

whether his mind ever travels from the surface of this earth at all—whether it is not bound to it as much as his body is, and can no more ascend up than it—whether such a man can be ever said to be fairly and fully and profitably convinced that the "end of all things is at hand," in earnest and good truth-and whether his end does not come on him as it comes on the cattle.

But the Apostle still adds a word more on the subject of preparation for this end. Not only be sober, says he-or take a calm and sober view or estimate of all the world has