# Seven soldiers to watch the soul



## MW (Mar 12, 2010)

Samuel Rutherford (Communion Sermons, 326-328):



> Now, if you shall ask for a guard to watch the soul, take these following. The first soldier that should be set in the very entry of your soul is _the fear of God_. See how excellently these two are conjoined, as the cause and the effect, fearing of God and running away from evil. The second soldier to set at the door of your soul is _sobriety and temperance_. Noah and Lot forgot these, and therefore they fell into a nap or sleep. This sobriety is a modest and wise carriage in the enjoying of the pleasures of this life. 1 Peter 5:8, "Be sober and vigilant," &c. The third soldier is that virtue which Solomon calls _discretion_; let it be before the door to try what guests come into the soul, what thoughts enter in. As the apostle John says, "Try the spirits whether they be of God or not." One devil is like another devil, and when we are thinking we are holding out one, another rushes in. The fourth soldier is _suspicion and fear of our own ways_, which should hold us waking. "Blessed is the man that feareth always" (Proverbs 28:14). Paul says to Timothy, "In all things watch;" even in the things of this life, in the setting a cup to our head, in the putting a bite in our mouth, or a soup at table, we should watch. If that seems to be but a feckless business, yet the devil entered into Judas with a soup; it is to make us careful between the hand and the mouth, to look to ourselves. To speak two pitiful words to a friend seems a small matter; yet when Peter said to our Lord, "Master, pity Thyself," he was the devil's agent in that. Believe never well of yourself, nor of the old man within you. Let no man pass his word, or be caution for his own heart, "for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). The fifth soldier that stands at the door of the heart is _meditation on death_; let the meditation of death stand in the threshold of the door. Wherefore doth Jerusalem (Lamentations 1:9) come down wonderfully? but because she remembered not her last end. If men would remember Christ and that death and judgment come in the night as a thief, they would have their hand ever at the door bar, and stand behind the door, watching till the Lord should knock: "Blessed is the man whom his Lord shall find so doing." The sixth soldier that keeps the soul ever on foot, is a continual _practice of good and walking with God_. Moving, walking, and serious business keep men from sleeping. Only be even-down honest with God, walking with Him in sincerity and truth, looking into His mercy, justice, kindness, and power. Remember the great work of your salvation, the keeping of an immortal soul, the gaining or losing of Christ. The seventh soldier, and last man of the guard, that I shall mention at this time is _Faith_, which tells us of the particular passages of heaven, hell, and judgment, of the wiles and devices of the roaring lion. And these be Solomon's valiant men that watch about His bed (Song 3:7), I mean the graces of God that keep Christ in the soul.


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