Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	business_n	fit_v	great_a	18	3	2.1273	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65610	The redemption of time, or, A sermon containing very good remedies for them that have mis-spent their time shewing how they should redeem it comfortably / by William Whately ... ; now published for general good by Richard Baxter.	Whately, William, 1583-1639.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1673 (1673)	Wing W1590; ESTC R38583	45,467	132

Time as you do But it amazeth me to see the worlds stupidity that people who are posting away unto Eternity and have so much to do in a little time and of such unconceivable importance can yet waste their dayes in sleeping and dressing and feasting and complementing in pastime and playes and idle talk as if they were all but a dream and their wits were not so far awakened as to know what it is to be a MAN And to increase our pity when they have done they ask What harm is there in cards and dice in stage-playes and Romances Is it not lawful to use such and such recreations suppose they were all unquestionably lawful Have you no greater matter that while to do Have you no more useful Recreations that will exercise your bodies and minds more profitably or at least with less expence of Time To a sedentary person Recreation must be such as stirs the Body To a Labouring person variety of good books and pious exercises is a fitter recreation than cards and dice. Is your Recreation but as the Mowers whe●ting of his sythe no oftner nor no longer than is necessary to fit you for those Labours and duties which must be the great and daily business of your lives If this be so I am not reprehending you But I beseech you consider Have you ●o● souls to regard as well as others Have you not a God to serve and his word and will to learn and do Have you not servants and children to instruct and educate And O what a deal of labour do●h their ignorance and obstinacy require Have you not death and judgement to prepare for Have you not an outward calling to follow Though I say not that you must do the same labours as the poor I say that you mast labour and be profitable to the Common-wealth Have you not many good works of Charity to do And will you leave the most of this undone and waste your time in playes and cards and feasts and idleness and then say what harm is in all this and are they not lawful O that the Lord would open your eyes and shew you where you must be ere long and tell you what wo●k you have here to do that must be done or you are lost for ever and then you would easily tell your selves whether playing and fooling away precious Time be lawful for one in your condition If your servan●s leave most of their work undone and spend the day in cards and stage-playes and feasting an● in merry chat and then say Mada● are not cards and playes and jesting lawf●l Will you take it for a satisfactory answer And is it not worse that you deal with God It is a most irrational and ungrateful errour to think that you may spend one hours time the more in Idleness because that you are Rich. The reason were good if labour were for nothing but to supply your own bod●ly necessities But do you not believe that God is your Lord and Master and that he giveth you not an hours time in vain but appointeth you work for every hour except your necessary rest And that your time and wealth are but his talen●s And bethink your selves whether a servant may say I will do less work than my fellow servants because I have more wages And whether you may do less for God because he giveth you more than others But of this I have said so much in my Preface to my Book called The Crucifying of the world that I shall now dismiss it And what I have said especially to the Rich who think their loss of Time no sin I must say also to all others O value Time before it 's gone Use it before it 's taken from you Dispatch the work that you were made for Repent and turn to God unfeignedly Prepare for death without delay Time will not stay nor will it ever be recovered Were it not lest I should write a Treatise instead of a Preface I would especially press this on all these following sorts of people 1. Those that are young who have yet the flower of their Time to use that they cast it not away on child●sh vanity or lust● 2. Those that have lost much Time already that they shew the sincerity of their Repentance by Redeeming the rest and lose no more 3. Those that are yet ignorant ungodly and unprepared for death and the world to come O what need have these to make haste and quickly get into a safer state before their Time be at an end 4. Those that in sickness resolved and promised if God would recover them to redeem their Time 5. The weak and aged who nature and sickness do call upon to make haste 6. The poor and servants whose opportunities for spiritual means are scant and therefore have need to take them when they may especially on the Lords day Those that live under excellent helps and advantages for their souls which if they neglect they may never have again 8. And those that by Office or Power have special opportunity to do good All these have a double obligation to value and redeem their Time But because in my Book called NOW or NEVER I have already urged these to dilige●ce I shall only add this one request to sportful Youth to sensual B●uites to the idle sort of the Gentry to impenitent loyterers to Gamesters and to all that have Time to spare that they will soberly use their reason in the answer of these following Questions before they proceed to waste the little Time that is remaining as vainly as they have done the rest And I earnestly beseech them and require them as in the sight and hearing of their Judge that they deny me not so friendly and reasonable a suit Quest. 1. Do you consider well the shortness and uncertainty of your Time You came but lately into the world and it is but a very little while till you must leave it The glass is turned upon you and it is uncessantly ●unning A certain number of motions your Pulse must beat and beyond that number it shall not be permitted to strike another stroke Whatever you are thinking or saying or doing you are posting on to your final state And O how quickly will you be there suppose you had seventy years to live how soon will they be gone But you are not sure of another hour Look back on all your Time that is past and tell me whether it made not haste And that which is to come will be as hasty Will not the tolling of the Bell instruct you Will not graves and bones and dust instruct you While many are hourly crouding into another world will conscience permit you to be idle Doth it not tell you what you have to do and call upon you to dispatch it Can you play away your time and idle it away whilest the bell is tolling whilest the sick are groaning whilest every pulse and breath is telling you that you are hasting to your

THE REDEMPTION OF TIME OR A SERMON containing very good Remedies for them that have mis-spent their time shewing how they should redeem it comfortably By WILLIAM WHATELY Preacher and Minister of Banbury in Oxfordshire Now published for general good by RICHARD BAXTER Psalm 90.12 Lord teach us to number our daies that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom LONDON Printed for Francis Tyton at the Three Daggers in Fleet-street 1673. THE PREFACE THE usual vice of humane nature to be weary of good things when they grow old and common and to call for novelties is especially discernable in mens esteem and use of Books Abundance of old ones are left neglected to the worm● and dust whilest new ones of far less worth are most of the Book-sellers trade and gain It is not easie to give a reason of it but it is not to be denyed that this age hath few such Writers as the last either controversal or Practical Even among the Papists there are now few such as Suarez Vasquez Valen●●● Victoria Penottus Ruiz Alvarez Bellarmine c. And among us too few such as Iewel Whittaker Reignolds Field Usher White Challoner Chillingworth c. which the Papists understanding would fain have the monuments of these worthies forgotten and are calling for new answers to the schisme that have been so long agoe confuted to keep those old unanswerable writings from the peoples hands And thus doth the envious enemy of holiness by the Practical writings of those holy men who are now w●th God The solid grave and pious labours of Rich. Rogers Perkins Greenham Deering Dent Smith Dod Hildersham Downame Sam. Ward Hall Bolton Dike Sto●ke Elton Tailor Harris Preston Sibs Ball and many more such are by the most neglected as if we were quite above their parts But it were well if more injudicious or undigested writings possessed not their room Though I may hereby censure my self as much as others I must needs say that the reprinting of many of our Fathers writings might have saved the labour of writing many later Books to the greater commodity of the Church Among the rest I well remember that even in my youth and since much more the writings of Mr. Whateley were very savoury to me especially his New-Birth his Care-cloth and his Sermon of Redeeming Time And finding this last now hardly to be got when yet the necessity of it is increased and knowing of no other that hath done that work so well I have desired the Printer to vindicate it from oblivion and benefit the world with the reviving of so profitable though small a Treatise I must so far venture on the displeasure of the guilty as to say that the doleful condition of two sorts of persons the SENSUAL GENTRY and the idle Beggars is it that hath compelled me to this service but especially of the former sort who though slothful may possibly be drawn to read so small a Book What man that believeth a life hereafter and considereth the importance of our busin●ss upon earth and observeth how most persons but especially our sensual Gentry live can chuse but wonder that ever Reason can be so far lost and even self-love and the care of their own everlasting state so laid asleep as mens great contempt of Time declareth Ladies and Gentlewomen it is you whom I most deeply pity and lament Think not that I am too bold with you God who employeth us on such service will be bolder with you than this comes to And Christ was bold wi●h su●h as you when he spake the Histories or Parables of the two Rich men in Luke 12. and Luke 16. And when he told men how hardly the Rich should enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And Iames was b●ld with such when he wrote Chap. 5. Go too now ye Rich m●n weep and ●owl for your miseries that shall come upon you Your Riches are corrupted and your garments Mo●heaten Your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire c. Yee have lived in pleasure on earth and been wanton Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter And he was neither ignoble nor unlearned but of Honourable birth and the Orator of an University who was so bold with the English Gentry when they say they were much wiser and better than they are now as to be speak them thus Herbert's Church-porch Fly Idleness which yet thou canst not flye By dressing mistressing and complement If those take up the day the Sun will cry Against thee for his light was only lent God gave thy soul brave wings put not those feathers Into a bed to sleep out all ill weathers O England full of sin but most of slo●h Spit out thy phlegm and fill thy breast with glory Thy Gentry bleats as if thy native cloth Transfus'd a sh●epishness into thy story Not that they all are so but that the most Are gone to grass and in the pasture lost This loss springs chiefly from our education Some till their ground but let weeds choak their son Some mark a Partridge never their childs fashion Some ship them ●ver and the thing is done Study this art make it thy great design And if Gods Image move thee not let thine Some great estates provide but do not breed A mast'ring mind so both are lost thereby Or else they breed them tender make them need All that they leave this is flat poverty For he that needs five hundred pounds to live Is full as poor as he that needs but five When I peruse the map of Sodome in Ezek. 16 49 50. methinks I am in an infected City where instead of LORD HAVE MERCY ON US is written on the GENTRY's doors PRIDE FULNESS OF BREAD ABUNDANCE OF IDLENESS UNMERCI●U●NESS AND ABOMINATION B●hold this was the iniquity of thy s●st●● ●od me pride fulness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in he● daughters neither did she strengthen the ●a●d of the poor and needy and they were haughty and committed abomination before me The title over the leaves of these verses might be THE CHARACTER OF THE SENSUAL GENTRY Mistake me not I am so far from accusing all the Rich and Honourable that I must say it is as a testimony against the rest that I know many such who spend their Time as fruitfully and diligently as the poor though in another sort of service And such might the rest have been if their Bodies had not got the mastery of their Souls It is not your PRIDE or FULNESS of BREAD that I am now to speak of but your IDLENESS Many of the old Philosophers thought that when sickness or age had made one unserviceable to the Common-wealth it was a shame to live and a duty to make away themselves as being but un●rofi●able burdens to the world Christians are not of their mind because it is a mercy even under pain to have time of

up some of his graces in her soul. When she is with others her words are savoury sober seasonable as the oracles of God for piety and truth tending to edification and to administer instruction and grace to the hearers and rebuking the idle ta●k or filthy scurrility ●r backbiting of any that would corrupt the company and discourse At evening she again returneth to the more solemn worshipping of God and goeth to rest as one that still waiteth when she is called to rest with Christ and is never totally unready for that call Thus doth she spend her daies and accordingly doth she end them being conveyed by Angels into the presence of her Lord and leaving a precious memorial to the living the poor lamenting the loss of her charity and all about lamenting the removal of a pattern of piety and righteousness and loving holiness the b●tter ●or the perfume of such a heavenly and amiable an example On the other side how d●fferent is the life of the sensual Ladies and Gentlewomen to whom I am now writing When they have indulged their sloth in unnecessary sleep till the precious morning hours are past they arise with thoughts as fruitless as their dreams Their talk and time till almost half the day is gone is taken up only about their childish trifling ornaments so long are they dressing themselves that by that time they can but say over or joyn in a few formal words which go for prayer it is dinner time for an Image of Religion some of them must have lest conscience should torment them before the time And when they 〈◊〉 sate out an hour or two at dinner in gratifying their appetites and in id●e talk they must spend the next hour in talk which is as idle A savoury word of the life to come must not trouble them nor interrupt their fleshly converse Perhaps they must next go to Cards or Dice and it may be to a Play house or at least on some uprofitable visitation or some worthless visitors that come to them must take up the rest of the afternoon in frothy talk which all set together comes to nothing but vanisheth as smoak And they chuse such company and such a course of life as shall make all this seem unavoidable and unnnecessary and that it would run them into contempt and great inconveniences if they did otherwise If they look after their affa●●s it is meerly through covetousness But more usually they leave that care to others that they may do nothing that is good for soul or body They use their servants as they do their beast● for their service only and converse with them as if they had no souls to save or lose They teach them by their example to speak vainly and live sensually and to forget the life to come Their children they love but as the bruits do their young They teach them how to bow and dance and carry themselves decently in the sight of men but never labour to heal their souls of ignorance unbelief and pride nor open to them the matters of everlasting consequence But rather perswade them that serious holiness is but hypocrisie and the obedience of Gods Laws is a needless thing They teach them by their example to curse and swear and lye and rail and to deride Religion or at least to neglect God and life eternal and mind only the transitory vanities of this life They leave them to Satan to wicked company and counsel and to their fleshly lusts and pride and when they have done take care only to get them suffi●ient maintenance to feed this sensual fire while they live They train them up for the service of sin and Satan that at age they may have Igno●ance and Vi●e s●fficient to make them the plagues and misery of their Country and to engage them in enmity against that Gospel and Ministry which is against their lusts that rebelling against Christ they may have at last the reward of Rebels instead of salvation In a word they do more against their poor childrens souls than all their enemies i● the world if not more than the Devil himself could do at least they most eff●ctually serve him for their childrens damnation Thus do they spend their daies and at night conclud● them as carelesly as they begun them And at death without a true conversion shall end them as miserably as they spent them sinfully And while they are pampering their flesh and saying I have enough I will eat d●ink and be merry they suddainly hear Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required and then whose shall all this be which thou possessest Luke 12.19 20. And when they have a while been cloathed in Purple and Silks and fared s●mptuosly every day th●y must hear at last Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented And when the Time which they now despise is g●ne O what would they give for one other year or hour of such time to do the work which they now neglected Luk. 16.24 25 26. Matth. 25.8 9 10 11 12. Is there not a great difference now between these two sorts of persons in the expence of Time And is it any wonder if there be a difference in their rewards In Matth. 25.30 It is not on●y cast the whoremonger the drunkard the perjured the persecutor but cast the unprofitable servant into outer ●arkness there shall be weeping a●d gnashing of t●eth Compare I beseech you the Time which you spend 1. In idleness 2. In excessive sleep 3. In adorning you 4. In feasting and long meals 5. In curiosity and pomp employing most of your servants time in impertinences as well as your● own 6 In excessive wordly cares 7. In vain company and idle talk 8. In vain thoughts 9. In sensual recreations in cards dice huntings hawkings playes Romances fruitless books c. I say compare this Time with the Time which you spend in examining your hearts and lives and trying your title to eternal life in bewailing sin and begging mercy of God and returning thanks and praise to your great Benefactor in instructing your children and servants in visiting the sick relieving the poor exhorting one another in meditating on Eternity and the way thereto in learning the word and will of God and in the sanctified labours of your outward calling and let your consciences tell you which of these hath the larger share And whether those things which should have none and those which should have little have not almost all And whether God have not only the leavings of your flesh Gentlemen and Ladies I envy not your pleasures I have my self a body with its proper appetites which would be gratified as well as you And I have not wanted opportunity to grat●fie it If I thought that this were the most manly life and agreeable to reason and that we had no greater things to mind I could thus play away my