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The Tenth SERMON. (Book 10)
PART I.
MATTH. XXIV. 42.Watch therefere; For yee know not what hour your Lord doth come.
THese are the words of our blessed Saviour, and a part of the answer he returned to that question which was put up by his Disciples vers. 3. Tell us, When shall these things be? and what shall be the signe of thy coming, and of the end of the world? Where we may observe that he doth not satisfy their curiosity, which was measuring of Time, even to the last point and moment of it, when it shall be no more, but he resolveth them in that which was fit for them to know, and passeth by in silence and untoucht the other as a thing laid up and reserved in the bo∣some of his Father. The time he telleth them not, but foretelleth those fearful signes which should be the forerunners of the destruction of Jeru∣salem and of the end of the world: Which two are so interwoven in the prediction that Interpreters scarce know how to distinguish them. We need not take any pains to disintangle or put them asunder. At the thirtieth verse our Saviour presents himself in the clouds with power and great glory: The Angels sound the Trumpet, at the next: The two men in the Field, and the two women grinding at the mill, in the verses immedi∣ately going before my Text, the one taken, the other left, are a fair evi∣dence, and seem to point out to the end of the world, which will be a time of discrimination, of separating the Goats from the Sheep. And then these words will concern us as much as the Apostles; In which He who is our Lord and King, to rule and govern us, He that was, and that is, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is to come, telleth us of his coming, openeth his will,* 1.1 and manifesteth his power, and, as he hath given us Laws, telleth us he will come to require them at our hands; He that is the Wisdome of his Fa∣ther, He that neither slumbreth nor sleepeth, calleth upon us, maketh this stir and noise about us; and the alarum is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Be watchful. Call it what we please, an Admonition, or an Exhortation, it hath the necessi∣tating and compulsive force of a Law, and Christ is his own Herald, and proclaimeth it as it were by the sound of the trumpet: For this VIGI∣LATE ERGO, Watch therefore, is tuba ante tubam, is as a trumpet before the last trumpet; and thus it soundeth, To you it is commanded, to fling your selves off from the bed of security, to set a court of guard upon your