Perilous Times

We'll turn your Bibles back to the 2nd epistle of Timothy and to the 3rd chapter. We shall have our attention on verse 1 of 2nd Timothy chapter 3. This note also that in the last days perilous times shall come. The sermon was by the great Puritan John Owen. It was preached in the 3rd of November in 1676 during the reign of King Charles II.

These words contain a warning of imminent dangers and there are four important points in them. Firstly, the manner of the warning. This, know also. Secondly, the evil itself that they are warned of. perilous times. Thirdly, the way of their introduction, they shall come. Fourthly, the time and season of it, they shall come in the last days. Firstly, the manner of the warning, this know also. Thou, Timothy, in addition to the other instructions which I have given thee, how to behave thyself in the house of God, whereby you may be set forth as a pattern unto all gospel ministers in future ages. I must also add this, this know also.

It belongs to thy duty and office to know and consider the impending judgments that are coming upon the churches. And so as a justification of my present design, if God enable me, I shall here premise that it is the duty of ministers of the gospel to foresee and take notice of the dangers which the churches are falling into. And may the Lord help us and all other ministers to be awakened unto this part of our duty. You know how God sets it forth, Ezekiel 33, in the parable of the watchman toward men of approaching dangers. And truly, God has given us this law.

If we warn the churches of their approaching dangers, we discharge our duty. But if we do not, their bloods will be required at our heads. The Spirit of God foresaw the negligence apt to grow upon us in this matter, and therefore the Scripture identifies the duty on the one hand, and on the other it requires the people's blood at the hands of the watchmen, if they perform not their duty. So speaks the Prophet Isaiah in chapter 21 verse 8, he cried a lion, my Lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower. A lion is an emblem of approaching judgment. The lion hath wrought. Who can but tremble, saith the prophet Amos? It is the duty of ministers of the gospel to give warnings of impending dangers.

Again, the Apostle in speaking unto Timothy speaks also to us all. This know ye also. It should be the great concern of all Christian professors and believers of all churches to have their hearts very much fixed upon both present and approaching dangers. We have inquired so long about signs, tokens and evidences of deliverances and I know not that we have almost lost the benefit of all our trials, afflictions and persecutions. The duty of all believers is to be intent upon present and imminent dangers. O Lord, say the disciples in Matthew 24 verse 3, what shall be the sign of thy coming? they were fixed upon his coming.

The Saviour answers, I will tell you. One, there shall be an abounding of errors and false teachers. Many shall say, lo, here is Christ, and lo, there is Christ. Two, there shall be an apostasy from holiness. Iniquity shall abound, and the love of many shall wax cold. Three, there shall be a great distress of nations. Nations shall rise against nations. and kingdom against kingdom.

4. There shall be great persecutions, and they shall persecute you and bring you before rulers, and you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.

5. There shall be great tokens of God's wrath from heaven, signs in the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars. The Lord Christ did acquaint believers how they should look for his coming. He tells them of all the dangers. Be intent upon these things. I know you are apt to overlook them, but these are the things that you are to be intent upon. Not to be sensible of the present perilous season is that security which the scripture so condemns. And I will leave it with you. In short, under these three things. One, it is a frame of heart of all others God doth most detest and abhor. Nothing is more hateful to God than a secure frame in perilous times.

2. I will not fear to say this and take it as to my opinion to the day of judgment. A secure person in perilous seasons is assuredly under the power of some predominant lust, whether it appears so or not.

3. The secure senseless frame is the certain presage of approaching ruin. This know, brethren, pray know this, I beg of you, for yours and my own soul, that you will be sensible of and affected with the perils of the season whereinto we are now cast. What they are, if God help me and give me a little strength, I shall show you by and by. Secondly, there is the evil and danger itself thus forewarned, of, and that it is hard times, perilous times, times of great difficulty, like those of public plagues, when death lies at every door, times that I am more sure we shall not all escape. Let it be where it will. I will say no more of it now, because it is that which I shall principally speak to afterward. Thirdly, the manner of their introduction shall come.

We have no word in our language that will express the force of the original. The Latin expresses it by eminino incido as the coming down of a fowl unto his prey. Now our translators have given it the greatest force they could. They do not say perilous times will come, as though they are prognosticated future events, but perilous times shall come. This is the positive hand of God. They shall so come, be so instant in their coming, that nothing shall keep them out. They shall instantly press themselves in and prevail. Our great wisdom then will be to eye the displeasure of God in perilous seasons, since there is a judicial hand of God in them. And we see in ourselves reason enough why they should come, but when shall they come?

Fourthly, they shall come in the last days. The words latter or last days are taken three ways in scripture, sometimes for the times of the gospel, which followed the Judaical church state as in Hebrews 1 verse 2, having these last days spoken unto us by his son. And elsewhere, it may be taken for days towards the consummation of all things and the end of the world. It also may refer to the latter days of churches. 1 Timothy 4 verse 1, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith. This rendered season perilous and whether this is such a season or not you can judge. and I must say we may and ought to witness against it and to mourn for the public sins of the days wherein we live. It is as glorious a thing to be a martyr for bearing testimony against the public sins of an age as in bearing testimony unto any truth of the gospel whatsoever.

1. Now, where these things are, the season is perilous.

1. Because of the infection, churches and professors are apt to be infected with it. The historian tells us of a plague at Athens in the second and third years of the Peloponnesian War, where of multitudes died, and those that lived, few escaped, but they lost a limb, or part of a limb. Some an eye, others an arm, and others a finger. The infection was so great and terrible. And where this plague comes, through the practice of unclean lusts, under an outward profession, though men do not die, yet one loses an arm, another an eye, another a leg by it. The infection diffuses itself to the best of professors. More or less, this makes it a dangerous and perilous time. Two, it is dangerous because of the effects.

For when predominant lusts have broken all bounds of divine light and rule, how long do you think that human rules will keep them in order? They break through all in such a season as the apostle describes, and if they come to break through all human restraints, as they have broken through the divine, they will fill all things with ruin and confusion.

Three, they are perilous in the consequence, which is the judgments of God. where men do not receive the truth and the love of it but have pleasure in unrighteousness. God will send them strong delusions to believe a lie. So 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 10 and 11 is a description of how the papacy came upon the world. Men professed the truth of religion but did not love it. They loved unrighteousness and ungodliness and God sent them potpourri This is the interpretation of the place according to the best of arts.

Will you profess the truth and at the same time love unrighteousness? The consequence is security under superstition and ungodliness. This is the end of such a perilous season and the same may be said with regard to temple judgments which I need not mention. Let us now consider what is our duty in such a perilous season.

1. We ought to greatly mourn for the public abominations of the world and of the land of our nativity wherein we live. I would only observe that place in Ezekiel 9 verse 4. God sends out his judgments and destroys the city, but before doing so he sets a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. You will find this passage referred to in the book of Revelation chapter 7 verse 3. Hurt not the earth, neither the seed, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

I would only observe this, that such only are the servants of God. Let men profess what they will, who mourn for the abominations that are done in the land. And truly, brethren, we certainly We are certainly to blame in this matter. We have been almost well contented that men should be as wicked as they would themselves, and we sit still and see what will come of it.

Christ had been dishonoured, the Spirit of God blasphemed and God provoked against the land of our nativity, and yet we have not been sufficiently affected by these things for us to contend against them. I can truly say in sincerity, I bless God, I have sometimes laboured with my own heart about it, but I am afraid this is All of us exceedingly short of our duty in this matter.

Rivers of waters, saith the psalmist, run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law. Psalm 119 verse 136. Horrible profanation of the name of God, horrible abominations, which our eyes have seen and our ears heard, and yet our hearts have been unaffected with them.

Do you think this is a frame of heart that God requireth of us in such a season to be regardless of it and not to mourn for the public abominations of the land? The servants of God will mourn. I could speak but am not free to speak about those prejudices which keep us from mourning over public abominations. But they may be easily suggested in your thoughts and particularly what they are that have kept us from attending more unto this duty of mourning for public abominations. Give me leave to say that according to the scripture rule there is not one of us that can have any evidence that we shall escape the outward judgments that God will bring for these abominations if we have not been real mourners over them.

This then is one part of our duty of this day, that we should humble ourselves for all the abominations that are committed in the land of our nativity, and in particular, that we have not mourned over them as we should. Our second duty in reference to this perilous season is to take care that we be not infected with the evils and sins of it.

A man would think it were quite contrary, but really, To the best of my observation, this is the frame of things, unless upon some extraordinary dispensation of God's Spirit preserving us, that as some men's sins grow very high, other men's graces grow very low. Our Saviour hath told us, Matthew 24 verse 12, because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold. A man would think the abounding of iniquity in the world should give great provocation to love one another. No, saith our Saviour, the contrary would be found true. As some men's sins grow high, other men's graces would grow low. And there are reasons for it.

A. In such a season we are apt to have light thoughts of great sins.

The Prophet looked upon it as a dreadful thing that upon Jehoiakim's throwing the roll of Jeremiah's prophecy into the fire till it was consumed, yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king nor any of his servants that heard all these words in Jeremiah 36 verse 24. They will grow senseless both of sin and judgment and where men, be they in other respects ever so wise, grow senseless of sin. They will quickly grow senseless of judgments too. I'm afraid the great reason why many of us do not have an impression upon our spirits of danger and perils in the days wherein we live is because we are not sufficiently sensible of sin. b.

Men are apt to countenance themselves in lesser evils, having their eyes fixed upon the greater abominations of other men they daily behold. There are those who pay their tribute to the devil, walking in such and such abominations and so countenance themselves in lesser evils. This is part of the public opinion that they do not run out into the same excess of riots that others do. Though they live in the omission of duty and conform to the world in the fulfilment of many foolish and hurtful lusts, they comfort themselves with this, that others are guilty of greater abominations.

See, pray let such remember this who have vocation for it. You may know it better than I, but yet I know it by rule as much as you may do by practice, that general converse in the world in such a season is full of danger and peril. Most professors become influenced by those with whom they converse. This is the first thing that makes a season perilous. I know not whether these things may be of concern and use to you. They seem so to me, and I cannot but acquaint you with them.

Second point, a perilous season, is when men are profane but are prone to forsake the truth and seducers abound to gather those up that are so, and always these things go together. Do you see seducers abound? If so, you may be sure there is a proneness in the minds of men to forsake the truth. and where there is such a proness, they will never want for seducers. That is, those that will lead the minds of men away from the truth, for there is both the hand of God and Satan in this business. God judicially leaves men when he sees them grow wary of the truth, becoming prone to leave it, and Satan uses the occasion and stirs up seduces. This makes a season perilous. The Apostle describes it 1 Timothy 4 verse 1 And so Peter warns those to whom he writes in 2 Peter 2 verses 1 and 2 that there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring indamnable heresies, even denying the Lords that brought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction, and many shall follow their pernicious ways. There shall come times full of peril, which shall draw men from the truth into destruction. If it be asked how may we know whether there is proneness in the minds of men in any season to depart from the truth, there are three ways whereby we may judge it. The first is mentioned in 2 Timothy 4 verse 3.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. When men grow weary of sound doctrine, when it is too plain, too heavy, too dull, too common, too high, too mysterious, one thing or another displeases them and they would hear something new or something that may please them. It is a sign that they are in such an age when many are prone to forsake sound doctrine. The second is when men have lost the power of truth in their conversation and are as prone and ready to part with it in their minds.

Do you see a man retaining the truth in his worldly conversation? He only wants enticement from temptation or a seducer to take away his faith from him, an inclination to hearken to novelties and the loss of truth in conversation. It is a sign of one's proneness unto destruction so unto declension from the truth Such a season, you see, is perilous. And why is it perilous?

Because the souls of many are destroyed by it. The Apostle tells us directly in 2 Peter 2 verse 1, Does it stop there? No. and many shall follow after their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 2 Peter 2 verse 2.

Brethren, while it is well with us through the grace of God and our own houses are not in flames, do not let us think the times are not perilous. When so many turn into pernicious errors and fall into swift destruction, will you see the time of the public play was not perilous, because you were presented alive? No. Was the great fire not dreadful because your houses were not burnt? No. You will not withstanding say it was a dreadful plague and a dreadful fire. I pray you to consider it's not this a perilous season. when multitudes have an inclination to depart from the truth and gods in just judgment have permitted Satan to sew up seducers to draw them into pernicious ways and their poor souls perish in hell forever.

Besides this, there is a great aptness in such a season for indifference to be in the minds of those who do not intend utterly to forsake the truth. Little did I think I should ever have lived in this world to find the minds of professors grown altogether indifferent as to the doctrines of God's eternal election. the sovereign efficacy of grace in the conversion of sinners, justification by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, but many have become indifferent as to all these things. I bless God I know something of the former generation. When professors would not hear of these things without the highest detestation, and now our high professors begin to be leaders in it, and it is much of a concern among the best of us. We are not so much concerned for the truth as our forefathers were. I wish I could say we were as holy.

The third point is the proneness to depart from the truth is a perilous season because it is the greatest evidence of the rejoining of the Spirit of God from His Church, for the Spirit of God is promised to this end, to lead us into all truth, and when the efficacy of truth begins to decay, it is the greatest evidence of the departing and withdrawing of the Spirit of God. I think that this is a dangerous thing, for if the Spirit of God departs, then our glory and our spiritual life departs also. What now is our duty in reference to this perilous season? Full warnings of perils are given to instruct us in our duty.

The first is not to be content with what you judge to be a sincere profession of truth, but to labour to be found in the exercise of all those graces which are particularly in respect to the truth. There are graces with regard to truth that we are to exercise, and if these are not found in our hearts, all our profession will issue in nothing.

And these are a. Love, because they love not the truth, They made a profession of the Gospel but they received not the truth in the love of it. There was a want of love for the truth. Truth will do no man good where there is not the love of it. Speaking the truth in love is the substance of our Christian profession.

Pay, brethren, let us labour to love the truth and remove all prejudices from our minds that we may do so. be it is the great and only rule to preserve us in perilous times that we labour to have the experience of the power of every truth in our hearts.

If so be ye have learned the Lord Jesus. How? So as to put off the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts and to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Ephesians 4 verses 22 to 24. This is to learn the truth and the great grace that is to be exercised with reference to it in such a season as this. It is to exemplify it in our hearts in the power of it. Do labour for the experience of the power of every truth in your hearts and lives.

C. Zeal for the truth. Truth is the most proper object for zeal.

We ought to contend earnestly for the truth once delivered to the saints, and to be willing, as God shall help us, to part with our name and reputation if necessary, and to undergo scorn and contempt. All that this world can cast upon us in our giving testimony unto the truth. Everything that this world counts dear and valuable is to be forsaken rather than the truth. This was the great end for which Christ came into the world.

2. Cleave unto the means that God hath appointed and ordained for your preservation in the truth. I see some are ready to go, to sleep, and think themselves not to be concerned with these things. May the Lord awaken their hearts. May we keep to the means for the preservation of the truth, the present ministry of the Word of God. Bless God for a ministry of the truth and cleave unto it. There seems little influence upon the minds of men on this ordinance and institution of God in the great business of ministry.

But there are those that seem to have better abilities to dispute than you. More knowledge, more light, better understanding than you. If you know no more in the ministry than disputing, you will never have benefit by it. The words of God are God's ordinance, the name of God upon them and God will be sanctified in them. They are God's ordinance for the preservation of the truth.

Let us carefully remember the faith of them who went before us in the profession of the last age. I am apt to think there was not a more glorious profession for a thousand years upon the face of the earth than was among the professors of the last age.

And pray, what faith were they of? Were they half Arminian, half Sassanian, half Papists, and half I know not what? Remember how zealous they were for the truth, how little their holy souls would have borne with those public defections from the doctrine of truth which we see and do not borne over, but make nothing of in the days wherein we live. God was with them and they lived to his glory and died in peace, whose faith follow and their example pursue. And remember the faith they lived and died in, look round about and see whether any of the new creeds have produced a new holiness to compare with or exceed theirs.

A third thing that makes a perilous season is professors mixing themselves with the world and learning their manners. And if the other perilous seasons are come upon us, this is come upon us also. This was the foundation and spring of the first perilous season that was in the world. The first brought in a deluge of sin and then a deluge of misery. It was the beginning of the first public apostasy of the Church, which issued in the severest mark of God's displeasure. Genesis 6 verse 2.

The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. This is but for one instance of the Church of God, the sons of God, professors mixing themselves with the world. This was not all that they took themselves, wives, but this was an instance the Holy Ghost gives that the Church in those days did degenerate and mix itself with the world.

What is the end of mixing themselves in this manner with the world? Psalm 105 verse 35. But were mingled among the heathen, and what then? And learned their works. If anything under heaven will make a season perilous, this will do it, when we mingle with the world and learn their manners. There are two things I shall speak under this heading.

First, many Christian professors mingle themselves with the world in that wherein they become unnecessary involved with the world. That which is more eminently and visibly of the devil, professors do not so mingle themselves with all, but in that wherein it is the world in its own colours.

As in corrupt communication, which is the spirit of the world, the extract and the fruit of vanity of mind. That wherewith the world is corrupted, a duff corrupt, an evil kind of communication, whereby the manners of this world are corrupted, this comes from the spirit of the world. The devil hath his hand in all these things, but it is the world and the spirit of this world that is corrupt. And how have this spread itself among professors? To spend one's life in light, vain, foolish communications is not of God.

The habits and attire of the world are things wherein the world doth show what it is. Men may read what the world is by evident characters in the habits and attire that it wears. They are blinds that cannot see the vanity, folly, uncleanness, luxury in the attire the world has put upon itself. The declension of professors is imitating the ways of the world in their habits and garments, makes a season perilous. It is a mixture wherein we learn their manners and the judgments of God will ensue upon it.

In this likewise, we are like the world if we are regardless of the sins of the world and not troubled with them. Lot lived in Sodom, but his righteous soul was vexed with their ungodly deeds and speeches. live where we will, if our spirits are deadened, then we will observe these worldly things, the greatest abominations with the same spirit that the world doth have. Not to speak of voluptuousness of living, and other things that attend this woeful mixture with the world, that profession that professors have made in the days wherein we live. Corrupt communication, gaiety of attire, senselessness of sins and the abominations of the world round about us are almost as much upon professors as the world. We have mixed ourselves with the people and have learned their manners, but Such a season is dangerous because such sins are contrary to the whole design and the meditation upon Christ in this world.

Did Christ give himself for us that he might purge us from the dead works and purify us unto himself a peculiar people? He is a royal nation, a peculiar people. Christ had bought the hatred of the devil and all the world upon and against himself were taking the people out of the world and making them a peculiar people to himself. Their throwing themselves upon the world again is the greatest contempt that can be put upon Jesus Christ. He gave his life and shed his blood to recover his people from the world.

How easy were it to show that this is an inlet to all other sins and abominations, and that for which I verily think the indignation and displeasure of God will soon discover itself against professors and churches in this day. If we will not be indifference from the world in our ways, we shall not long be differenced from them of our privileges. If we are the same as the world in our walk, we shall also be so in our worship, or have none at all. As our duty in such a perilous season, let me leave three cautions with you, and the Lord fix them upon your hearts. One, The profession of religion and the performance of duties under a world-like conversation are nothing but the devil's means to lead men blindfolded into hell. We must not speak little things in such a great court.

2. If you will be like the world, you must take the world's lot. It will go with you as it goes with the world. Inquire and see in the whole book of God how it will go with the world. what God's thoughts are of the world, whether it's safe or not. If it lies in wickedness, it shall come to judgment, and that the curse of God is upon it. If therefore you will be like the world, you must have the world's lot. God will not separate.

Lastly, consider we have by this means lost the most glorious cause of truth that ever was in the world. We do not know if there have been a more glorious cause of truth since the apostles' days than what God have committed to his church and people in this nation for the purity of the doctrine of the truth and ordinances, but we have lost all the beauty and glory of it by mixing with the world. I verily think it is high time that both the elders and ministers should consult together how to stop this evil that have lost all the glory of our profession. It is a perilous time when professors mix themselves so much with the world. There are other perilous seasons that I ought to have insisted on, but I will but name them. For when there is a great attendance on outward duties for inward spiritual decay, now herein, my brethren, you know how long I have been speaking of the causes and reasons of inward decays, and the means to be used for our recovery. I shall not, therefore, again insist upon them.

5. Times of persecution are also times of peril. Now, I need not tell you whether these seasons are upon us or not. It is your duty to inquire into that, whether there be not an outward retaining of the truth under a visible prevalency of abominable lusts in the world, whether there be not a proneness to forsake the truth, and seduces at work to draw men from it, whether there be not a mingling of ourselves with the world, and therein learning their manners, whether there be not inward decays under the outward performance of duties, and whether many are not suffering under persecution and trouble. Judge ye and act accordingly. One word of use, and I have done, Let all of us be exhorted to endeavour to get our hearts affected with the perils of the day wherein we live. You have heard the poor weak discourse concerning it, and perhaps it will be quickly forgotten. Oh that God would be pleased to give us this grace, that we may find it our duty to endeavour to have our hearts affected with the perils of these seasons. It is not a time to be asleep upon the top of a mast in a rough sea, when there are so many devouring dangers round about us and it is better to affect this how.

First consider your present things and bring them to rule and see what God's Word says of them. We hear this and that story of horrible, promptitious wickedness and bring it in the next opportunity of our talk and then lightly pass it over. We hear of the judgments of God abroad in the world and bring them to the same standard of our own imaginations. And there it ends.

But brethren, will you observe any of these things how it is with you? If you would have your hearts affected, bring it to the word and see what God saith of it. Speak with God about it and ask and inquire at the mouth of God, what he saith about those prodigious wickednesses and judgments, this coldness that is upon professors and their mixing with and learning of the manners of the world. You will never have your heart affected by it until you come and speak with God about it. and then you will find that it makes your heart ache and tremble.

And then, if you will be sensibly of present perilous times, take heed of centering in one self. Whilst your greatest concern is self or the world, all the angels in heaven cannot make you sensible of the peril of the days wherein you now live. Whether you pursue riches or honours, while you centre there, nothing can make you sensible of the perils of the day. Therefore do not centre in self.

Also, pray that God will give us grace to be sensible of the perils of the day wherein we live. It may be we have had confidence that though thousands fall at our right hand and at our left, yet we shall be able to carry it through. Believe me, it is great grace. Point your private closet prayers and your family prayers this way, and the Lord help us to point our public prayers to it, that God will make our hearts sensible of the perils of the time wherein we are fallen in these last days. The second use is that there are two things in a perilous season, the sin of it and the misery of it.

Labour to be sensible of the former, or you will never be sensible of the latter. Though judgments lie at the door, though the heavens be dark over us, and the earth shake under us at this day, and no wise man can see where he can build himself and abide in habitation, we can talk of those things and hear of other nations soaking in blood, and have tokens of God's displeasure and warnings from heaven above. the earth and beneath, and no man is sensible of them. Why? Because they are not sensible of sin, nor ever will be unless God makes them so.

I shall range the sins that we should be sensible of under three heads. First the sins of the poor, wretched, perishing world in the first place, then the sins of the professors in general in the second place, and our own particular sins in the case in the third place. and let us labour to have our hearts affected with these. It is to no purpose to tell you this and that judgment is approaching for your leaders and for those that are upon the watchtower to cry, a lion, my Lord, we see a lion. Unless God make our hearts sensible of sin, we shall not be sensible of judgments.

Remember there is a special frame of spirit required in all of us in such perilous seasons as these are. And what is that? It is a mourning frame of spirit. Oh that frame, that jolly frame of spirit that is so often upon us. The Lord forgive it, the Lord pardon it unto us and keep us in a humble, broken, mournful frame of spirit. for it is a peculiar grace God looks for in such a time as this. When he will pour out his Spirit, there will be great mourning together and apart, but now we may say there is for the most part no mourning. The Lord help us.

We have heard hearts and dry eyes under the consideration of all these perils that are before us. Keep up a church with watch and diligence by the rule. When I say rule, I mean the life of it. I have no greater concern upon my heart than that God should withdraw himself from his own institutions because of the sins of the people and leave us only in the form of an outward profession and order. What doth God give us prayer and watchfulness for? Is it for our own sake? No, but that it may be clothing for faith and love and meekness of spirit and compassion, watchfulness and diligence.

Take away these and farewell to all spiritual rule and order. Keep up the spirit that may live affected with it. get the spirit of church watch which is not to look for faults in others but diligently watch and out of pure love and compassion to the souls of men to diligently and out of pure love and compassion to watch over them to wait to do them all the good we can as it was with a poor man who took a dead body and set it up and it fell and he set it up again and it fell upon which he cried out. There once something within. To enliven and quicken it so is it with church order and rule.

Set them up as often as you will that they will fall if there be not a love to one another. a delighting in the good of one another, exhorting one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Reckon upon it that in such times as these all of us will go free.

When you find mention of a perilous season in scripture, it always follows that some shall have their faith overthrown, others shall follow pernicious ways, and others turn aside. Brethren and sisters, how do you know that you or I may fall? Let us double our watch, every one of us, for the season has come upon us wherein some watch, every one of us. some of us may fall and fall so as some smart for it. I do not say we shall perish eternally, God deliver us from going into the pit, but some of us may so fall as to lose a limb or some member or other and our works will be committed to the fire that shall burn them all up.

God hath kindled a fire at Zion, and will try all our works, and we shall see in a short time what will become of us. Lastly, take that great rule which the Apostle gives in such times as those wherewith we are concerned. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure. Blessed be God for it. The Lord knoweth them that are his. What then is required on our part?

Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Your profession, your privileges, your light will not secure you. You are gone unless everyone that nameth the name of Christ departs from all iniquity. What multitudes perish under a profession of religion every day? O that our hearts could bleed to see poor deceived souls in danger of perishing under a religious profession. Will you hear the sum of it all?

Perilous times and seasons are come upon us and many are wounded already. Many have failed. The Lord help us. The crown is fallen from our head. The glory of our profession is gone. The time is short. The judge stands before the door. Take but this one word of counsel, my brethren. Watch ye therefore and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. Amen.

Perilous Times

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Perilous Times

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