most moving sermons preached to me while I labour to teach. All the day long, while I warn others, I am warned myself; while I teach, I receive instruction; while I preach, I am preached unto; while I exhort others to watch against Thy coming, I have many visible persuasions to keep mine own light burning.
All these sick rooms, and great sorrows of men, and instances of uncertainty of life, and spectacles of bodily pain and terror, and hopes of good men, and hardness of the impenitent, and patience of the true believers—all these, the bleatings of my sheep in my ears, are like a great company of preachers teaching me in divers strains to prepare mine own soul, and the souls of my people, by Thy help, O Lord, for the day of Thy coming. Surely it is a great mercy that I am thus surrounded by these messages of God.
What should I become, if all such things were removed out of my sight, if I were occupied with worldly cares, and were mixed with men in the day of their health, or were engaged in places of buying and selling, in the businesses of the world! Other men follow worldly callings of great temptation, where the sounds of the world dwell in their ears, where all the speech is of bargains, markets, trade, disputes in law, vain