were a voice speaking to thee as God to Baruch Jer. 45. 4 5. I will break down and pluck up and seekest thou great things seek them not Death is the great Leveller that will make all equal and you that grasp the world most greedily will find it but vanity for all is vanity is the language of experience Eccl. 1. 2. 1 John 2. 17. When Samuel was to anoint Saul he brought or directed him to Rachels Sepulcher and to this end as is suppos'd namely to suppress or prevent haughty proud thoughts that might arise from that new and great preferment And if the supposition be true it is as if he had spoken thus Saul God hath highly honoured you and I annoint you King But remember here lies the dust of that beautiful Rachel and though you are now King in Israel yet you must be as Rachel viz. laid in a Grave or Sepulcher the thoughts of which is a very mortifying Meditation You that have the waters of a full Cup that wallow in wealth and swim in worldly glory to wean you from the world that your hearts may not be turned into Earth and buryed before you are buryed keep fresh in your thoughts death and eternity Job 14. 14. 3. Would you be deeply sensible of the sad and doleful condition of unbeleivers when they come to dye think seriously of your latter end What will you do in the hour of distress when God shall call for your breath change your countenance and require your souls if you have made no preparation for death and Judgement Poor souls I would pity you with my very heart to think how ignorant you are of your great concernment you eat drink sleep buy sell and get gain but slight your souls and do not consider of the evil day We be unto him that is alone that is alone in life and alone in death that hath no Christ to befriend him or stand by him in that woeful day that cometh to lye down in the death-bed without peace or pardon who shall go into a Grave and stand before the Ba without an Advocate to plead for him It is most probable you may have dife ferent apprehensions of yout selves and others in your dying hour so the nearer the object the clearer the sight O sinners when the door of eternity begins to open as usually it doth to men dying you will have other thoughts of your selves and other men Here you ruffle it out thinking your selves above and better then others behold great Babel said that proud person in his Princely Palace but when pale death appears it will pull down those Peacocks feathers and cause their crests to fall Now the world shines and sparkles in your eyes which makes you judge and think that nothing but Riches Honor and Greatness can make you happy then it wil appear the pant being off to be an empty nothing As for the pure â—n heart who mourn for sin and mind itheir soules above the world who are scorn'd jeer'd hated being look'd upon as a company of poor pensive sneaking besotted fools will then be adjudged the best wisest and happiest men on earth Now sin is excused and called a light and little thing for trick of youth but then it will have at black and dreadful face and feel more heavy then lead taste more bitter then death it self Now the Damned and cursed Crue are your brave Boon companions and bosom friends but when you are come to your dying groanes and cold sweats away with them their sight is terrible But know that you who have been companions in sin must be companions in sufferings and lye down together in everlasting chaines and flames you shall be fettered and bound together and never part any more for ever Now an interest in Christ and a life of holiness is little valued and every lust and triffle preferred then a world a world for a Christ forty thousand pound for a good Conscience cryed out a wicked wealthy worldling when dying and passing into eternity 4. Would you expedite your Repentance try your state and make all ready for the other world think upon this last enemy the King of terrors that will ere long terminate your dayes and then all your opportunities will be gone for e If the thoughts of death especially the second death did but influence your hearts and penitrate npon your Consciences you would easily be perswaded to cast away your sins namely to cut off a right hand or pluck out a right eye and to rent your hearts to mourn in secret to afflict your souls and to put your mouths in the dust if so be there may be hope Lam. 3. 28. 29. We see that men in a journey if they think they have daly enough they are slack and slow enough but if they see but a little time they will make speed If a man must do the work of a whole day in half a day he will make hast Repentance is not a work for a day though a daly work our whole life is little enough to compleat and perfect it As long as we sin we must mourn while we provoke the Judge we must plead guilty and sue our out pardon with Ropes a bout our necks and smiting on our breasts and if it might be with tears of blood And the great things of death and Judment will prepare and prompt you to do it suddenly for when the day is gone the night comes and the Grave and Hell have shut their mouths upon you what can be done Eccles 9. 10. 5. Would you pray more frequently more fervently then ever you have done remember you must dye The Monuments and Statues of the dead as one notes are made in a praying posture viz. kneeling and with hands lifted up to heaven as if the remembrance of them now dead should teach us our duty what we must do whilst living One that was wont to pray often in a day being asked why he spent so much time in prayer gave no other answer but this I must dye I must dye An awakening apprehension of a mans entrance upon an endless state and a speedy approach before the holy God will make him pray and that importunately If there be in the Family a Husband wife or Child near unto death almost every one that cometh about the bed will be lifting up hands and putting up of prayers and then you cry out send speedily for some sober serious Minister or for some solid savoury praying Christian to commend his sad case to God The young man that lately suffered for Murder who came into Newgate as ignorant of God as the horse or the Mule and as sensless of his soul as a stock or a stone was by the acxcess and application of Ministers to him convinced of his desperate case and through the grace and blessing of God upon his appointed means he seemed so deeply sensible of the dreadful hazzard of his precious soul that he did with so
God gasping and panting after the Lord Jesus Christ Psal 42. 1 2. O labour for such a frame of heart and bewail a narrow and contracted spirit Do not perform duties for duties sake so as to make duties the end of duties but as the medium by which thy soul may draw nigh to God and meet with him The countenance and presence of God in a duty is the very Suburbs of glory yea the very gate of Heaven Gen. 2â— 17. Let this be in thy thoughts and the very purpose of thy heart and expect it vehemently in every access to God Let thy soul follow hard after God and say One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life Psal 27. 4. Psal 84. 2. Duties are only the outward Court but the form shell and carkass of Religion as Pipes without Water Breasts without Milk as Sails without Wind or as a Body without a Soul that hath no life The encrease of your grace and holiness depends upon your acquaintance and communion with the God of grace It was Mose his being in the Mount that made his face to shine and the Kings being at his Table that caused the Churches Spikenard to send forth the swell thereof Cant. 1. 12. The presence of the glorious God on a Sabbath the presence of God in prayer or at a Sacrament will be unto thy soul as marrow and fatness and that which will make thy hands to drop with Myrrh and thy fingers with sweet-smelling Myrrh Thus it was with the Spouse when her Beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door Cant. 5. 4 5. 6 By improving every Providence every Comfort every Cross for Gods glory and our own spiritual advantage God doth nothing in vain for he hath a peculiar respect unto the good of his people in all his dispensations he doth time measure and order every dark and afflicting providence for his Churches advantage Jer. 24. 5. Rom. 8. 24. Heb. 12. 10 11. God's chastning and teaching commonly go together therefore it is we must hear the Rod and who hath appointed it Mic. 6. 9. The Rod hath a Voice Beasts may feel the rod but the believer hearts the rod. God's rod should make us like Aaron's rod bud blossom and to bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness Heb. 12. 11. Now if you would be bettered by affliction endeavour to do three things 1. To understand the meaning or mind of God in them for what sins committed or duties neglected they are sent Afflictions are Gods Messengers and we should never be quiet till we know their Errands Job 10. 2. 2. See the hand of God in all those afflictions So did David Psal 39. 10. and holy Job 1. 11. Hos 6. 1. 3. Labour to answer the end of God in your straits and troubles that you might be made more humble more holy more heavenly before that we may say and find that it hath beed good for us to be afflicted We have as much reason to seek unto God for a blessing upon our daily Rod as upon our daily Bread 7. Time must be redeemed by casting up your accounts every day and so to make even with God and not get further into his debt This will be the way to get an acquittance to procure a pardon before you are called and forced to an account Secret duties if well done are the sweetest duties and yet sadly neglected by Saints themselves You should retire every night and spend a little time in self-examination and when you sit alone commune with your hearts and call over the passages and actions of the day past We read Gen. 24. 63. That Isaac went out in the evening tide to meditate a precious duty but rarely practised Christians should spend void spaces of time in ejaculatory Prayer and holy Meditation And O how hard it is to ascend this Mount of heavenly Meditation 'T is very easie and delightsom to think of the World the pleasures of Sin Friends Riches Worldly business but to Meditate on God Heaven Eternity the insufficiency and vanity of the creature the bitterness of sin the certainty of death and judgement the very inwards of Religion is very difficult Before you lye down upon your beds at night call your selves to an account by such questions as these 1. I have lived many years in the world What have I been doing all my days have I answered the end of my being 2. Have I had a holy awe of God in the midst of my Worldly business this day What thoughts of death and Judgement have I had Where hath my heart been 3. How have I performed duties this day What hath been the sins of this day the mercies of this day that I may beg the pardon of the one and bless God for the other 4. What assistance and communion with God have I had this day in the duties of his worship have not God and my soul been strangers this day and many days together 5. What have I done or spoken for God and his Glory this day in my Family or else-where have I demean'd my self like a child of God this day this is to make Religion our business or to walk in the fear of the Lord all the day 8. Improve your time by endeavouring to order every days work with reference to your last day The end of every duty and the great reason of redeeming time lies here namely that we may be fit to dye and stand before God Therefore must we glorifie the infinitely holy God and make him our friend Hence it is that we must secure our souls and speedily get into Jesus Christ and grow in grace do good to others call our selves to an account and clear our title unto heaven that all our work may be done up while it is day and none left to do let death call when it will The reasons why our precious time must be redeemed are 1. Because the days are evil 2. Because 't is a considerable part of our Christian wisdom Reas 1. Because the days are evil This is the Apostles own argument to enforce the duty Precious time and evil days run parallel therefore no part of a little time must be lost I shall instance in a few particulars to make it appear 1. The Tares of false Doctrine or Diabolical Blasphemous Damnable Opinions do abound How do the Devils Agents endeavour to raise and undermine the very foundations and principles of the Christian faith Those old and damnable heresies that have been condemned and expunged out of the Church of God are greedily embraced and swallowed down by more then a few 2 Tim. 3. 1. and 4. 3. 2 Pet. 1. 12. Ye therefore Beloved seeing ye knew these things before beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own stedfastness 2 Pet. 3. 17. 2 Tim. 1. 13. 2. Mens flagitious
that you know how you ought to answer every man Col. 4. 5 6. 5. Excessive indulging the outward man Much of our time is spent in making provision for the flesh Rom. 13. last Some hours are taken up every day in providing for the belly to please the Pallate and some at their Tables take up much time Others to gratifie a proud fancy much time is wasted in decking and trimming the body There are those that spend more time in looking into a glass then upon their knees in praying to God A godly Minister coming to a Gentlewomans house to Dinner where he waited from ten a clock till one all the while she was dressing burst out in weeping to think that she should spend so much time in Trimming and he so little in Praying Also excessive Sleep doth devour a great part of our short life and time When we should be on our knees in our Closet we are in our beds or on our Couches Others waste their precious time in Ale-houses and Tavers and Brothel-houses from day to day God's day being not exempted Against such there is a dreadful Wo Wo unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink that continue until night till Wine inflame them Isa 5. 11 12. 6. Vnlawful or immoderate Recreations are the occasions of great expence of time Recreation not to be used but as Physick in case of need is an ingrosser and wafter of our time that 's dear and precious Many are so excessive in it as if they were sent into the World to do nothing but sport What time is spent is Carding Dicing Dancing Interludes Stage-plays Bear and Bull-baitings Hunting Hawking and in reading Romantick Books which for Men and Women professing the Gospel are not of good report Phil. 4. 8. The turning of the Bible or of some good Book is more becoming a Christian then turning a pair of Cards a Game so much accustomed by the Prophane and an occasion of much sin These things will cause bitterness and horror at last they are Honey to the Fansie but a sting to the Conscience Consider which will afford most comfort dying Item so many days in recreation or so many days in humiliation so many hours in prayer or so many hours in playing at Cards so many hours in vain filthy discourse or so many hours in serious and Heavenly conference Item so many Sabbaths in reading hearing and singing of Psalms or so many Sabbaths spent in eating drinking walking or worse Holy Bradford counted that hour lost wherein he had not done some good Titus Vespasian was wont to say Diem perdidi I have lost a day Direct 2. Set a due estimate upon this precious Jewel of Time that your hearts may be so truly tender as to make conscience of wasting of it A Godly Minister was wont to say when he saw the morning clear and serene 'T is pity this day should be lost O value your time reckon more of one Sabbath then of the best Fair or Market that ever thou wasted in all thy life Set upon the now day of Grace the price of Eternity I have told you already the damned in Hell if it might be would give a World for one opportunity to make peace with God Direct 3. Set apart some considerable portion of time for the most secret duties 1. For ordinary secret prayer and meditation set some time apart in the morning and evening of every day and do not catch and snatch at praying-times Many serve the world and the flesh all day and put off God with a few words or sleepy prayers at night Prayer is the breath of the new Creature and the sign of spiritual life Act. 9. 6. Christians let your prayers be secret sincere fervent constant The way to Heaven said a good man is through the Closet and they that have been eminent in Piety have been excellent in Prayer Holy David would not let a morning pass without prayer Psal 5. 3. Yea three times a day he was at this blessed duty Psa 55. 17. It was his Element and constant employment Psal 109. 4. Your prayer must be fervent if it be effectual Prayer without fervency is as a Bullet without Powder or as a Bird without wings that cannot mount up into the Air. Holy fire must be put to the daily Sacrifice God answers by Fire He that looks upon the heart regards the manner of your Prayers more then the number of your prayers Cold slight mumbling over a few Petitions either out of custom or to stop the mouth of conscience will not prevail Ps 25. i. Isa 26. 9. Jam. 5. 15. Christians the time that you spend with God in secret is the sweetest time and best improved Therefore if thou lovest thy life be in love with prayer Resolve to spend some time with God in private every day 2. Extraordinary private Fastings is a duty very necessary and practised but by a few Soul-afflicting dayes between God and a man's self would though grace be much for spiritual advantage Husbands should mourn apart and their Wives apart Zech. 12. 12 13. Fasting-days will be Soul-fatting days Acts 10. 30. and Blessed are they that mourn Mat. 5. 4. 3. The third private duty is self-examination When thou art alone ask thy self these questions 1. Is it most certain that I am in a state of Grace 2. Is Grace thriving Doth my inward man prosper 3. Do I live in no known sin against Conscience Psal 19. 1. 28. and exercise my self unto Godliness 4. Do I make conscience of redeeming time so as to joyn time and duty togetogether A Precious Servant of the Lord was wont to say if a man could answer to these two Questions he need not to fear First Am I Gods child Secondly Am I in Gods way Psal 119. 94. Direct 4. If you would redeem your time compute your time Pray thou mayest do it Psal 90. 12. Psal 39. 4. Numbring the People was David's sin but numbring his days a duty 'T is common for men to number their Sheep their Cattel Houses Lands Wares Money but to number our days is a rare kind of numbring for the neglect of which what arears are we fallen into with the great Land-lord of our time Christians divide your time into parcels and consider how little God hath how much time was spent in thy Infancy and Child-hood before thou hadst the use of reason how much is spent in our Callings and Employments about the world how much in Eating and Drinking and unprofitable discourse besides all this half or more is spent in sleeping so that in the work of God and about our immortal souls we employ but a very little Therefore 't is more then time to redeem it Direct 5. Maintain always a holy fear upon thy heart of coming to the end of time before thy work be done Live continually in an expectation of your great changes Buy Sell Converse Read Pray Hear and do all as