Ephesians 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; I. CONSTANTLY. The lamp of God in the tabernacle was to "burn always" (Exodus 27:20 and Exodus 30:8); that is, always in the night, which sense is favoured by several other places. And I pray, what is our life in this world but a dark night of temptation? Take heed, Christian, that thy watch candle go not out in any part of this darksome time, lest thy enemy come upon thee in that hour. He can find thee, but not thou resist him in the dark; if once thy eye be shut in a spiritual slumber thou art a fair mark for his wrath; and know, thou canst not be long off thy watch, but the devil will hear of it. II. UNIVERSALLY. 1. Watch thy whole man. The honest watchman walks the rounds, and compasseth the whole town. He doth not limit his care to this house or that. So do thou watch over thy whole man. A pore in thy body is a door wide enough to let in a disease, if God command; and any one faculty of thy soul, or member of thy body, to let in an enemy that may endanger thy spiritual welfare. Alas, how few set the watch round! some one faculty is not guarded, or member of the body not regarded. He that is scrupulous in one, you shall find him secure in other; may be thou settest a watch at the door of thy lips, that no impure communication offends the ears of men; but how is the "Lord's watch" kept at the temple door of thy heart? (2 Chronicles 23:6.) Is not that defiled with lust? Thou perhaps keepest thy hand out of thy neighbour's purse, and foot from going on a thievish errand to thy neighbour's house; but does not thy envious heart grudge him what God allows him? 2. Watch in everything. Let there be no word or work of thine over which thou art not watchful. Thou shalt be judged by them, even to thy idle words and thoughts; and wilt thou not have care of them? III. WISELY. 1. Begin at the right end of your work, Christian, by placing your chief care about those main duties to God and man, in His law and gospel, in His worship, and in thy daily course, which when thou hast done, neglect not the circumstantials. Should a master, before he goes forth, charge a servant to look to his child, and trim his house up handsomely against he comes home, when he returns will he thank his servant for sweeping his house and making it trim, as he bid him, if he find his child, through his negligence, fallen into the fire, and by it killed or crippled? No, sure, he left his child with him as his chief charge, to which the other should have yielded, if both could not be done. There hath been a great zeal of late among us, about some circumstantials of worship; but who looks to the little child, the main duties of Christianity, I mean. Was there ever less love, charity, self-denial, heavenly-mindedness, or the power of holiness in any of its several walks, than in this sad age of ours? Alas! these, like the child, are in great danger of perishing in the fire of contention and division, which a perverse zeal in less things hath kindled among us. 2. Be sure thou art watchful more than ordinary over thyself in those things where thou findest thyself weakest, and hast been oftenest foiled. The weakest part of the city needs the strongest guard, and in our bodies the tenderest part is most observed and kept warmest. And I should think it were strange, if thy fabric of grace stands so strong and even that thou shouldst not soon perceive which side needs the shore most, by some inclination of it one way more than another. Thy body is not so firm, but thou findest this humour over-abound, and that part craze faster than another; and so mayest thou in thy soul. Well, take counsel in the thing, and what thou findest weakest, watch most carefully. (W. Gurnall, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; |
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