They should wakefully observe what may be fit opportunities for escaping from the world to hold communion with God, that they may carefully improve them. Thus did David watch unto prayer, when he said, “As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud; and He shall hear my voice."

They should watch against worldliness of mind, and especially against wilful transgressions, remembering that, "if we regard iniquity in our heart, God will not hear us." 1

They should watch in reference to the manner of prayer when engaged in it; taking care that it be prayer, and not merely saying prayers; that they serve him who is a Spirit, with their spirits "in spirit and truth;" that they "present a living sacrifice;" that they "yield rational worship;" that they "pray in the spirit," depending on the promised influence of the Holy Ghost as "the Spirit of grace and of supplications;" that they pray "in faith, nothing wavering; for he that wavereth is as a wave of the sea driver of the wind and tossed-let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord;" that they pray with intense desire, being “instant in prayer;" that they pray in humble submission, saying, "Not my will, but thine

3

Finally, they should watch in reference to the results of prayer. Like Habakkuk, they should "stand on their watch, and set them upon the tower to see what he will say to them." "I will direct my prayer to thee," says David, "and look up." Christians "should look after their prayers, and hear what the Lord will speak, observe what the Lord will do; that if he grant what they ask, they may be thankful; that if he deny, they may be patient and humbly inquire the cause; that if he defer, they may continue to pray and wait, and not faint. They should look up, or look out, as they who have shot an arrow, looking to see how near it has come to the mark. We lose much of the comfort of our prayers for want of observing the returns of them." 4

II.-MOTIVE URGING TO SOBRIETY, AND WATCHING UNTO PRAYER“THE END OF ALL THINGS IS AT HAND."

Let us now, secondly, attend to the motive by which the apostle enforces his exhortation. "The end of all things is at hand;" therefore "be sober, and watch unto prayer."

"The end of all things" is a phrase, which, taken by itself, most naturally calls up the idea of the final termination of the present order of things, which is so often mentioned in the sacred writings. A period is fixed, when He who established the present mundane system shall proclaim, "It is done," and the dead shall live, and the living shall be changed, and all shall be judged; death shall be swallowed up in life, and time be no more, having been lost in eternity; the heavens and the earth that now are shall be dissolved, the 1 Psal. lv. 17; lxvi. 18. 2 John iv. 24.

Luke xxii. 42.

3 Habak. ii. 1.

Rom. xii. 1. Aoyikǹv darpɛíav. Jude 20. James i. 6, 7. Col. iv. 1. • Matthew Henry.

Psal. v. 3.

heavens passing away with a great noise, the earth also, and the works that are therein being burnt up, the very elements melting with fervent heat; and the new heavens and the new earth, wherein righteousness is, and shall dwell," shall take their place. These solemn truths are well fitted to operate as powerful motives on all who believe them, to be sober, and to watch unto prayer. “What manner of persons ought we to be," says the apostle; "in all holy conversation and godliness," "looking for, and hastening to, the coming of this day of God." "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that we look for such things, be diligent, that ye be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless." "He who," to use the language of a great writer, "has seen, as through a telescope, the glorious appearance of the Supreme Judge, the solemn state of his majestic person, the splendid pomp of his magnificent and vastly numerous retinue, the obsequious throng of glorious celestial creatures, doing homage to their eternal king; the swift flight of his royal guards sent forth into the four winds to gather the elect, and covering the face of the heavens with their spreading wings; the universal attention of all to that loud-sounding trumpet that shakes the pillars of the world, pierces the inward caverns of the earth, and resounds through every part of the encircling heavens; the many myriads of joyful expectants, arising, changing, putting on glory, taking wing, and contending upwards to join themselves to the triumphant heavenly host; the judgment set; the books opened; the frightful, amazed looks of surprised wretches; the equal administration of the final judgment; the adjudication of all to their eternal states; the heavens rolled up as a scroll; the earth and all things therein consumed and burnt up:"1 Surely that man must be sober, deeply, calmly considerate, knowing how present character and conduct is to affect future events; and maintaining a steady restraint and moderation of all his affections and passions in reference to a world, the fashion of which is thus to pass away: Surely he must watch unto prayer, watch and pray always, that he may be accounted worthy to escape "the perdition of ungodly men," and "stand before the Son of man," in the judgment. This is a powerful motive, fitted to influence the minds and hearts and conduct of all believers in all countries and ages till the end come.

But there are obvious difficulties in this mode of interpretation. "The end of all things is" said so to be "at hand;" that is, very near. Now, eighteen centuries have well-nigh run their course since these words were uttered, and the end of the world has not come-nay, when we think of the number and magnitude of the events that must take place before it arrives, we cannot concur with those who are of opinion that it is very soon to take place. "The end is not yet.

To meet and remove this difficulty, it has been remarked by some, that the age of the Messiah is the last age; that no such great event as the flood, or the giving of the law, or the coming of the Word in flesh, stands between them who live under that age and the end of the world; so that it may be said to be near all who live under the gospel economy; by others, that it is near, if not in the calculations

1 Howe. Vanity of man as mortal.

of time, in those of eternity, with him, with whom "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day;" and by a third class, that as the state of every man is fixed at death, that as death leaves him judgment will find him, the end of all things to him is not far off. I must say that these modes of getting over the difficulty do not appear to me to be satisfactory; and that the apostle's obvious design is to intimate that the events referred to in the phrase, "the end of all things," were just about to take place.

Their view of the matter is still less satisfactory who tell us that the apostles really did expect the immediate dissolution of the world. We know there were persons who so misunderstood such statements as that before us; but we find the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Thessalonians, warning them against such a mistake, and telling them that the day of Christ, in the sense of the day of the last judgment, was not at hand.1 Besides, it is not with what the apostles, exercising their own unassisted judgments, expected, but with what the inspiring Spirit spoke by them, that we have to do.

After some deliberation, I have been led to adopt the opinion of those who hold, that "the end of all things" here, is the entire and final end of the Jewish economy in the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the holy people. That was at hand; for this epistle seems to have been written a very short while before these events took place, not improbably after the commencement of "the wars and rumors of war," of which our Lord spake. This view will not appear strange to any one who has carefully weighed the terms in which our Lord had predicted these events, and the close connection which the fulfilment of these predictions had with the interests and duties of Christians, whether in Judea or in Gentile countries.

It is quite plain, that, in our Lord's predictions, the expressions "the end," and probably "the end of the world," are used in reference to the entire dissolution of the Jewish economy.2 The events of that period were very minutely foretold; and our Lord distinctly stated that the existing generation should not pass away till all things, respecting "this end," should be fulfilled. This was to be a season of suffering to all; of trial, severe trial, to the followers of Christ ; of dreadful judgment on his Jewish opposers, and of glorious triumph to his religion. To this period there are repeated references in the apostolical epistles: "Knowing the time," says the Apostle Paul, "that 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." "Be patient," says the Apostle James; "stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” “The judge standeth before the door." 3 Our Lord's predictions must have been very familiar to the minds of Christians at the time this was written. They must have been looking forward with mingled awe and joy, fear and hope, to their accomplishment; "looking for the things which were coming upon the earth;" and it was peculiarly natural for Peter to refer to these events, and to refer to them in words similar 1 2 Thess. ii. 1-3. 2 Matt. xxiv. 3, 6, 14, 34. Mark xiii. 30. Luke xxi. 32.

9 Rom. xiii. 11, 12. James v. 8, 9.

to those used by our Lord, as he was one of the disciples, who, sitting with his Lord in full view of the city and temple, heard these predictions uttered.

The Christians inhabiting Judea had a peculiar interest in these predictions and their fulfilment. But all Christians had a deep interest in them. The Christians of the regions in which those to whom Peter wrote resided, were chiefly converted Jews. As Christians, they had cause to rejoice in the prospect of the accomplishment of these predictions, as greatly confirming the truth of Christianity, and removing some of the greatest obstructions in the way of its progress; such as persecutions by the Jews, and the confounding of Christianity with Judaism, on the part of the Gentiles, who were accustomed to view its professors as a Jewish sect. But while they rejoiced, they had cause to "rejoice with trembling," as their Lord had plainly intimated that it was to be a season of severe trial to his friends, as well as of fearful vengeance against his enemies. The end of all things" which was at hand, seems to be the same thing as the judgment of the quick and the dead, which the Lord was ready to enter on, the judgment, the time for which was come; which was to begin with the house of God, and then to be executed fully on those who obeyed not the gospel of God, the unbelieving Jews; in which the righteous should scarcely be saved, and the ungodly and wicked should be fearfully punished.

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The contemplation of such events as just at hand, was well fitted to operate as a motive to sobriety, and vigilance unto prayer. These were just the tempers and exercises peculiarly called for in such circumstances; and they are just the dispositions and employments required by our Lord when he speaks of those days of trial and wrath. "Take heed to yourselves," says our Lord, "lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come on you unawares for as a snare shall it come upon all who dwell on the earth. Watch, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are about to come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." It is difficult to believe that the apostle had not these very words in his mind when he wrote the passage now before us.

While these exhortations had a peculiar appropriateness to those to whom they were originally addressed, while they received peculiar enforcement from the circumstances in which they were placed, they are plainly exhortations to which Christians, in all countries and ages, are called to attend; and especially when placed in circumstances similar in any way to those in which they were primarily given. We are obviously placed in such circumstances. There is now, as then, and to a still greater extent, a breaking up of old systems. Dynasties and hierarchies are shaking into dissolution. Society is in one of the great states of transition, which occur but at distant intervals in the history of our race. Seldom has the state of our times been more graphically and justly described, than in the words of a living writer-"What times are coming upon the earth we know not; but

1 Luke xxi. 34-36.

the general expectation of persons of all characters in all nations, is an instinct implanted by God to warn us of a coming storm. Not one nation, but all; not one class of thinkers, but all,-they who fear, and they who hope, and who hope and fear things opposite; they who are immersed in their worldly schemes, and they who look for some coming of God's kingdom; they who watch this world's signs, and they who watch for the next-alike have their eye intently fixed on somewhat that is coming; though whether it be the vials of his wrath or the glories of his kingdom, or whether the one shall be herald to the other, none can tell. They who calculate what is likely, speak of it; they who cannot, feel its coming. The spirits of the unseen world seem to be approaching to us, and 'awe comes upon us and trembling, which maketh all bones to shake.' There is "upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth." Times of trouble there have been before; but such a time in which everything, everywhere, tends in one direction to one mighty struggle of one sort-of faith with infidelity, lawlessness with rule, Christ with Antichrist, there seems never to have been till now." "God warneth us, by the very swiftness with which all things are moving around us, that it is He who is impelling them. Man cannot impart such speed, nor rouse the winds from the four quarters of the heavens, nor bring men's varying wills into a uniform result; and therewith he warns us to beware how we attempt to guide what he is thus manifestly governing." 1

The end of many things seems indeed approaching. Popery, though making convulsive struggles, must ere long expire. Babylon is repairing her battlements, only to make her fall the more signal. The long captivity of Israel is drawing to its close. The Mohammedan delusion is effete. The idols are about to be abolished. The sanctuary is about to be cleansed. Political despotism and ecclesiastical tyranny are doomed. But before the end of these things, what wars and rumors of wars," what siftings of men and systems! What struggles, what sacrifices, what sufferings are coming, are at hand! What need of faith and patience, of dependence and exertion, of caution and vigor! Never since the destruction of the Jewish economy was there a louder call to Christians to attend to the inspired declarations, "Be sober, and watch unto prayer."

1 Pusey.