Page:Great duty of confessing Christ before men, stated and recommended.pdf/17

17 and not for words, and names, and victory; and, in one word, never to give over till we have finished our testimony, as the two witnesses mentioned, Rev. xi. 7 did; their lives and their confession ended together. We should occupy and hold fast till Christ come; and though we may have but little strength, we should keep his word, and never deny his name. If we keep the word of his patience, he will also keep us from the hour of temptation which shall come on all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth, Rev. iii. 8. 10.

HEAD II.

The import of the promise, Him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven.

These words refer to a period in which all worlds are interested, the great day of judgment, when all rational beings that have ever existed, shall meet in one vast assembly before the judgment seat of Christ. In that solemn day Christ will be Judge, and preside in settling the destinies of these beings for eternity: and it must be unspeakaby exhilarating to be confessed by such an illustrious personage, and before such an illustrious congregation, and before the Father and his angels. To be confessed by Christ at the time referred to, may imply,

1. That Christ, whom they confessed before men, hath a high, value for his faithful witnesses. All his saints are precious in his sight; and he keeps them as the apple of his eye, and sets them as a seal on his heart and on his arm; but those who are jealous for him, when his covenant is forsaken, his altars thrown down, and his prophets killed, are held in peculiar estimation by him who is the faithful and true witness: Their prayers, their tears, their efforts, their contendings for his cause, are embalmed