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DISCOURSE
III.
SURPRIZE
IN
DEATH.
MARK
Xüi.
35, 36.
Watch ye, therèfore;
lest,
coming suddenly, he
find you
sleeping.
AMONG
the parables
of
our
Saviour, there
are
seve-
ral
recorded
by
the
evangelists, which
represent
him as
a
prince,
or lord and master
of
a
family,
departing, for
a
season, from his
servants,
and
in his
absence,
appoint-
ing them
their proper
work, with
a
solemn charge, to
wait for
his
return
;
at
which time, he
foretold them,
that
he
should
require
an
account
of their
behaviour in
his
absence
;
and
he
either
intimates, or expresses a
se-
vere
'treatment
of
those, who
should neglect
their duty
while he
was
gone,
or make
no
preparation
for
his
ap-
pearance.
He
informs them also,
that
he
should come
upon
them on a sudden, and, for this reason, charges
them to be always awake,
and upon their guard,
verse 35.
Watch
ye,
therefore;
for
ye
know
not
when .the
master
of
the
house comet
/i,
whether
at
even,
or
at
midnight,
or
at
the
cock
-
crowing,
or
in
the morning:
Though the ultimate
design
of
these parables,
and the
coming
of
Christ
mentioned therein, refer
to
the
great
day
of
judgment,
when he shall
return
from
heaven,
shall raise the dead,
and
call
mankind
to
appear before
his
judgment
-seat,
to
receive
a
recornpence according
to
their
works
;
yet
both the duties, and the warnings, which
are represented
in
these parables,
seem to be
very
ac-
commodable to the
hour of our
death;
for then
our
Lord
Jesus,
who has
the
keys
of
death and the grave,
and
the unseen
world,
comes to
finish
our state
of
trial,
and
to
put
a
period
to all
our
works
on
earth He
comes
then
to call us
into the invisible
state;
he disposes
our
bodies
to
the dust,
and
our
souls
are sent into
other
mansions,
and taste
some
degrees
of appointed happi-
ness
or
misery,
according
to
their behaviour
here.
The
solemn and awful warning,
which my
text
gives
us
con-
cerning
the
return
of
Christ
to
judgment,
may be
perti-
B