1. Where it begins. "When these things begin to come SERMON to pass," then that begins too. "Then look up."

2. To whom it belongs. You, disciples, do you look up.` 3. What kind of comfort it is. A looking up, a “lifting up the head," when all heads else droop with fear and grief.

4. Whence this comfort arises, from what ground it springs; for "your redemption draweth nigh."

I go on with all in order as they lie; so that if you remember the words, you cannot forget the order and method. "Then shall," &c.

At Christ's coming there we begin; but when is that? The heavens shall tell you, the earth shall tell you, the sea shall tell you, men shall tell you. The heavens, by signs and wonders, by storms and tempests; the lights of heaven shall lose themselves in darkness, and forsake their spheres, and their constantest powers shall be shaken out of their course and harmony. The earth shall quake for fear, and change its place. The waves shall fright themselves with their own roarings, and "men's heart shall fail for fear;" neither knowing how to stand, nor to avoid this dreadful coming. When these, with all the host of heaven and earth, startled out of their natural seats and postures, shall have prepared and ushered him the way, then shall he come. He comes not till all things else have done their motion and have gone their last.

Nor is it fitting so great a coming should be without an universal preparation, where every creature, forgetting its own nature, begins at last to study his. There is nothing that can stand when God comes: heaven itself is at a loss, and remembers not its perpetual motion, when it but apprehends his approach. Every thing is a wonder to itself when he appears. If nature itself be thus terrified, which groans not for itself but for us-what shall we be with all our sins about us; how can we abide his coming?

Yet then shall he appear when we know not how to appear heaven and earth will change their faces, men and angels will hide theirs, only He it is that dares be seen. Sins or imperfections make all the creatures cover themselves with some disguises, or endeavour it; only he, who is all purity, all perfection, comes then to show himself.

III.

SERMON
III.

Mark xiii.

32.

Thess. ii. 2.

Yet when this "then" shall be,when that day and hour shall come, no man knows, no, not the Son" of man himself, as man he that could tell you that come he would, and could tell you the immediate signs that would forerun it, knew not then the time when those signs should be, or knew it not to tell you; that we might always be waiting for his coming.

Had it been fit for us to know, no doubt he would have told us; but so far unnecessary it seems to be acquainted with that secret time, that he gives us signs which rather puzzle than instruct us: signs which we sometimes think fulfilled already; signs which have often been the forerunners of particular ruins and fates of countries and kingdoms; signs which at the same time we fear past already, yet think they are not; that so by this hard dialect of tokens in heaven and earth, we might behold our presumptuous curiosity deluded into a perpetual watching for this last coming.

There were in the Apostles' times, and there are still in ours, men who loved to scare the people with prophecies and dreams of the end of the world, as if this "then" already were at hand; such as would define the year and day, as if they had lately dropped out of God's council-chamber: but "we beseech you," says S. Paul, "that you be not troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand." "Let no man deceive you;" they do but deceive you, they vent their own dreams and fond presumptions. They know not when the Master of the house Mark xiii. will come, "whether at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or at the dawning;" for as a snare it shall come on all them that dwell on the face of the earth."

2 Thess. ii. 3.

35.

Ver. 35.

It is enough for us to know there shall be a day of judgment, against which we must provide every day to make up our accounts, lest that day come upon us unawares, lest death at least hurry us away to our particular doom, which will there leave us, where the last judgment will be sure to find us, in the same condition; no power or tears of ours being then able to change or alter it.

So that the punctual time of this coming, as Christ did not intend to declare, so it matters not to know. A "then," a time there will be of his coming!

64.

10.

III.

2. A time when "they shall see" him come. "They ;" and SERMON who are "they" but all mankind-but all the creatures? "Every eye shall see him, they also that pierced him :" Rev. i. 7. they also that crucified him, and condemned him. "Here- Matt. xxvi. after shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power," says Christ himself, to those who were his torturers and his judges. Nay, "we shall all stand before Rom. xiv. the judgment-seat of Christ." None of us all must think to escape. There we must give account what we have done amiss; every action, every idle word, every vain and wanton thought, every inward desire, must we yield account of in the day of judgment. Thy crown and throne, O king! cannot exempt thee. Your honours and compliments, O ye nobles! cannot excuse you. Thy riches, O thou son of pelf! cannot buy out thy absence. Thy sleights, O thou crafty politician! cannot evade it. Thy strength, O soldier! cannot defend thee from the angel that will drive thee thither. Your learning, O ye learned of the earth! can find no argument to keep you from it. Nor can ye, O ye worms of the earth, ye meanest, find holes in it to hide you at this coming.

Come you must all together at this coming, and see you shall the Son of man as he is coming. The wicked eyes, indeed, though Christ comes in glory, shall see nothing of his glory. The Son of man they shall behold, his humanity, but not his Deity. They shall see the wounds their sins have made, the hands and feet they have nailed, the side they have pierced, the head they have planted with thorns; all these to their grief and sorrow, to see him their Judge, whom they have so abused and wronged, so trampled and scorned, that he yet bears the marks of their malice and cruelty even in his throne of glory.

But the good man's eyes, they shall see his glory too; they shall behold his glorious face, which the eyes of the sinners and the ungodly are not able to perceive, by reason of that veil of sin and darkness that covers them. Both, then, shall see him; these only the Son of man, those the Son both of God and man, in his cloud, and in his glory.

Who are they, then, that think to hide themselves, who live as if they never thought to come to judgment? Did men certainly but seriously ponder, that, will they nill they,

III.

SERMON they must one day see Christ, they would use him better in his members than they do; better in his Church and ministers; better in his worship and service. Do they not, think you, imagine they shall never see him?-that they can shelter themselves somewhere from his presence-that dare use him thus contemptuously, thus proudly, thus sacrilegiously and profanely? Lay but this close every day to your bosoms as you rise, That you must one day come to appear before him and all your actions will be more regular, and your thoughts higher concerning Christ, and all that is his, or pertains to him; and you the better able to answer them when you see him.

;

3. For, thirdly, "see" him you shall; not only hear your doom and pass away, but see him pronouncing it. When he came to redeem the world, the eye saw him. Simeon's and Anna's, and all Judea's, many Greeks' and Gentiles' too. He came then that all might see him. But in his second coming, when he comes to judge it, then he comes that all shall see him, every eye behold him. The eyes that slept in dust before his first arrival-the eyes that in the time of his abode could never see him for their distance the eyes that ever since have seen the world, shall all then see him, as well as they that pierced him, nay, as well as they who lived with him, and daily saw him.

He might, considering how unworthy the best of us carry ourselves of that corporeal presence which he once vouchsafed us, considering how he was then misused and handled, have for ever denied us any sight of his glorious body; but he forgets the injuries he met with, and will once more show himself to our bodily sight; not so much to confound his persecutors, as to manifest the justice of his judgment, that the whole world may evidently see that He who came into the flesh then only to redeem us, comes in the same flesh again to judge us, that all may see our faith in our crucified God was neither vain nor unprofitable; but, by the evidence of their own eyes, confess and acknowledge it the only true way to eternal happiness.

And if these eyes now must one day behold their Lord and Master, how should we wash them every day, and cleanse them from earthly defilements with our tears, that they may

III.

be worthy to see that blessed object! Wash your eyes, ye SERMON wantons, from unclean and lascivious glances. Cleanse your eyes, ye proud ones, from scornful looks. Wipe your eyes, ye covetous minded, from that yellow dust that blinds your sight. Open your eyes, ye ignorant and seduced souls, that ye run not headlong to your own destruction, hoodwinked to hell, then only to unclose your deceived sight when you can see no comfort. Remember, you are all one day to appear before Christ's tribunal, where if you expect any comfort to your eyes, you must come thither with them washed, and wiped, and cleansed, and pure-no spots, no films, no blemish, no bloodshot in them. Whether to your comfort or no, "see" you shall. That is certain.

4. "Shall see." Can we not shut our eyes, then, when this day shall come? Can nothing lock up our eyelids in eternal night, no bar set before us but we must see this Son of man? Can no hills hide us, nor no mountains cover us? Can we not sleep in dust, and rest quiet in our confusion? Can we not vanish into that nothing out of which we first arose; or at least lie hid in that eternal pit, from ever seeing anything but the regions of everlasting darkness? Must we needs rise out of our wretched caves to see him, who cannot but afflict us at his coming? So it is; we must see him. See we must, though but to see the justice of our own damnation.

Nothing can be more certain than this sight. Sight it is the surest sense, and to see him at his coming is to be certain of it at the least; but to see the Son of man at his coming, is certainly with evidence; and to be bound to see it, to have such a tie upon us, such a condition on us, that we shall see it whether we will or no, is a certainty with a necessity upon it.

That so no man may doubt of a final retribution, whilst he is certain he shall one day see him, who will reward every man according to his work. Let not, then, the unjustly oppressed innocent, let not the less prosperous godly spirit droop; or the glorious and yet triumphing sinner, the prosperous rebel, or thriving atheist, pride himself in the success of his sins; for He is coming that shall come, and make the just man's eyes run over with joy and happiness