e must be sober in the use of all
things, or else he cannot be faithful to his master; he will be about his
own business when he should be watching. He will not only labour to please
the Captain of his salvation, Jesus, but he has many other things to
please besides: and if any of his too kind friends come to speak with him,
he will leave his duty and go apart with them, the watchman's office will
take him up nothing beside. But the insober man cannot give himself wholly
to it. Because his idols cry upon him, he will prefer his pleasures before
his credit and honesty. Therefore, as ye would not expose your souls and
all ye have, to the will of temptation, be sober. The devil hath gotten
his will of a man that he can force to lie down with the creature, and
sleep in its bosom. If once Satan can gild up the world in your eyes, and
represent it amiable, and cause high and big apprehensions of it, O, ye
are in the greatest hazard from the world of being overcome wholly by it!
That was the temptation Satan sought to prevail with Christ by, but he
found nothing in him. If the devil hath taken thee up to a mountain to see
the glory of the world, and make you fancy a pleasant life here-away,(520)
take heed of it, for ye will drink drunk,(521) and forget yourselves, and
will not discern between good and evil.

_Thirdly_. Prayer must be watched unto. We must not only pray, but
continue "instant in prayer," Rom. xii. 12. We must "continue in prayer,
and watch in the same with thanksgiving," Col. iv. 2. It is a strange
expression, and familiar in scripture, Eph. vi. 18. O what a strange word
is it! It is either very needless, or else imports the unspeakable
necessity of prayer. "Praying always," what needed more? But we must pray
with all manner of "prayer and supplication in the Spirit;" and more yet,
"watching thereunto;" and to express the superlative degree of the
necessity of prayer, he adds "with all perseverance." Since the words at
the first view do speak infinitely more than we practise, let many a
Christian express their own practice and set it down beside this verse,
and blush and be ashamed. The most part of you behoved to speak thus, I
pray sometimes morning and evening, when I have nothing to do. And is this
praying always, and watching thereunto with all perseverance? To watch
unto prayer we conceive speaks these things.

I. To observe all opportunities, occasions, and advantages of prayer,--to
be glad of getting any