REDEMPTION OF TIME The Duty and Wisdom of Christians in EVIL DAYS OR A Practical Discourse Shewing what SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES Ought to be redeem'd What MISSPENCES of TIME Are to be avoided with convincing REASONS Quickning MOTIVES And proper DIRECTIONS For the right Improvement of pretious Time By J. W. London Printed for Nathanael Ranew at the King's Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard 1683 To the Gentlemen and Inhabitants of HAMMERSMITH Honoured Worthy and Well-beloved Friends THe great and good God made Man Lord of the * Gen. 1.28 Psal 8.6 115.16 whole Earth but this is not the highest Preferment and utmost Advancement that he is capable of and destin'd to The incorporeal and diviner Part of him sufficiently discovers and evidently demonstrates that he pertains and belongs to another World Tully brings in Cato delivering this high point of Philosophy that this [a] Est animus coelestis ex altissimo domicilâ—o depressus quasi demersus in terram locum divinae naturae aternitaiâ— que contrarium cic in Cat. Maj. seu de senect Earth and earthly Body into which the Soul is sunk at present is a place extreamly contrary to a divine Nature and to Eternity This Earth is but our [b] Ex vita ista discedo tanquam ex hospitio non tanqu im ex domo Commorandi enim natura diversorium nobis non habitandi dedit Id. ib. Inn saies he in which as Travellers we are to lodg in our Journey hastening through Time to Eternity not our House and Home in which we are to dwell continually This World is appointed only as a Passage to a better place and state We are now in a way of Preparation for it This World as [c] Sir Mat. Hale's Contempl. M. and D. 1 part p. 263. one saies well is the great Laboratory for perfecting of Souls for the next We are here indeed to make but a short stay yet we must not repine at the brevity of this Life but ought to be content with that space of time which is allowed us for our Life on Earth and to take care that in [d] Neque enim histriont ut placeat peragenda est sabula modo in quocunque fuerit actu probetur nec sapientis sque ad plaudite vivendum Breve enim tempus aetatis satis est longum ad bene honestéque vivendum Cic. lib. cit whatsoever Act we are appointed to appear we perform our particular parts well though they prove but short ones that are assigned and committed to us in the great Comedy acted in the Theater of this inferiour World for as the forementiond Philosopher acknowledgeth a short time of Life is long enough to serve us to live well and honestly It concerns us only to endeavour to use and improve what time God pleases to afford us in doing those things which will fit and dispose us for a happy Eternity and make our Translation and Removal hence gainful and advantageous comfortable and desirable to us God hath prescribed a course of convenient means to be observed and used by us in this Probation-state [e] Non per difficiles Quaestiones ad beatam vitam nos ducit Deus Hilar. He does not lead us to a Life of Blessedness as St. Hilary tells us truly through thorny difficult Controversies and knotty hard Questions He would have us not dispute but live for as the * Mic. 6.8 Prophet informs us He hath shewed thee O Man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And as the ‖ Tit. 2 11 12. Apostle expresses it The Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us that denying Vngodliness and worldly Lusts we should live soberly righteously and godlily in this present VVorld He requires us to believe in order to Practice and Obedience God has given us but a [f] Pauca credenda multa facienda Cosid Mod. Pac. in epist Praef. few things to be believed as Bp. Forbes was wont well to observe but he has plainly ordered and appointed a great many necessary things to be done by us We must †Rev. 22.14 do his Commandments that we may be blessed and have right to the Tree of Life and enter in by the Gates into the City We mmst * Rom. 2 7. by patient Continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality The Scope and Drift of the following Treatise is to shew you particularly and fully how to redeem the Time of this Life so as to gain a glorious Immortality As for the Matter of it it is useful to instruct you in the Divine Arithmetick to make you wiser than [g] The Philosopher affirms that Man is therefore the wisest of all Creatures because he alone can number and they note this as an essential difference between them that Bruta non numerant Brure Creatures cannot number I am sure this is most true of that Divine Arithmetick which the Psalmist prays for Lord teach us so to number our Days that we may apply our Hearts unto Wisdom Dr. Stoughton's Heavenly Conversat p. 80. brutish Sinners that know not how to number their Days It is apt to engage you upon an early present Industry a diligent speedy Care of your Time and of your Souls and is a Manuduction to the Exercise of a great part of Practical Religion The Style of it is plain familiar and easy to be understood by all which renders the Treatise the more generally useful Some affect a Language so gaudy as is not consistent with the Gravity of Theology Others discourse in so strong a Style that by their lofty Words and Expressions they shoot quite over the Heads and so miss the Hearts of too too many of their Auditors Some paint the Glass till they darken the Window and keep out the Light Seneca professes that he does not approve of any jejune and dry Discourses about the great and weighty matters of Morality for Philosophy says he does not renounce all Wit and Ingeny but he does not allow much labour to be laid out upon Words [h] Non quaerit aeger medicum eloquentem sed sanantem c. non erit quare gratuletur sibi quòd inciderit in medicum etiam disertum hoc enim tale est quale si peritus gubernator et tam formosus est Quid aures meas scalpis quid oblectas aliud agitur urendus secandus abstinendus sum Ad haec adhibit us es curare debes morbum veterem gravem â—ublicum Tantum negotii habes quantum in pestilentia medieus circa verba occupatus es jamdudum gaude si sufficis rebus Sen. ep 75. A sick Man says he does not seek a Physician that is eloquent but that is able to cure his Disease no more than the Passenger regards and enquires whether the skilful Pilot or Governour of a Ship be a
spread so far and wide among us When so many so boldly deny the Providence and very Being of God the Immortality of the rational Soul and a Life and State of Retribution in another World the Divine Authority Perfection and Perspicuity of the sacred Scriptures the eternal Duration of Hell-torments the Divinity and Satisfaction of our Saviour Christ the divine Institution of the Lord's-Day deny the Necessity of the Moral Law disown Original Sin and any such Thing as Special Effectual Discriminating Grace infallibly securing the Event as to the Elect assert Perfection contend for Papal Infallibility plead for Idolatry and gross Superstition and design and endeavour and hope to make Popery become the Religion of the Nation it concerns you surely carefully now to redeem the Time The Evil of Errour mightily prevails in these our Daies Seducers and Impostors are subtil and industrious and Errour is of a catching spreading Nature therefore as St. Paul said to the Corinthians * 2 Câ—r 11.3 I fear lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his Subtilty so your Minds should be corrupted from the Simplicity that is in Christ. Take heed that the Leprosie get not into your Head In that case you know the Priest was to pronounce a Man †Levit. 13.44 utterly unclean That Errour take not Possession of your Mind for that is the Eye the leading Faculty and it it slip into the Mind and Judgment it will steal and creep into the Conscience and that is so active a Faculty that it will engage all O do your utmost and best endeavour to keep your selves clear and free from the foul and infectious Errours of the Times you live in ‖ 2 Pet. 3 17. Beware lest ye being led away with the Errour of the Wicked fall from your own Stedfastness 1. Be not too credulous (*) 1 Joh. 4.1 Believe not every Spirit not every one that pretends to a Spirit of Truth acting and breathing in him Now the Air abroad is so pestilentially infected take heed what Air you suck in be very wary what Money you take since the Markets are so full of adulterate Coin 2. Be careful to avoid the Meetings and to shun the Society of Seducers From (†) 1 Tim. 6.5 Men of corrupt Minds and destitute of the Truth from such withdraw thy self Don't venture to keep them Company and to take their Breath who have the Plague of wicked Errour upon them and whose Converse is Death and the eternal Ruin of your Souls Forbear to hear their Discourses or to read their Writings You are bidden indeed to (‖) 1 Joh. 4.1 try the Spirits that is to try all you hear but you must not be bold to hear all when you can shift it The Wise Man forbids that * Prov 19.27 Cease my Son to hear the Instruction that causeth to err from the Words of Knowledg Remember the sad Event of Eve's Rashness in venturing to listen to the Discourse of the Serpent 3. And that you may be the better secured from Errour labour to get a good Understanding of your Catechism to be well grounded in the Principles and Essentials and setled in the radical sundamental and practical Truths of Religion and throughly acquainted with the Necessaries to Salvation Do not stick to say with [h] Fateor me Catechismi descipulum Luther I confess I am still a Learner and Studier of my Catechism Learn it your selves and teach it your Children and Servants understandingly The want of Peoples being well instructed and throughly grounded in the Principles of Religion is a great [i] If this Duty of Catechising be neglected we may preach our Lungs our if we will but wich little Effect When we have spent all our Wind upon the Ears of our People their Hearts will be still apt to be carried away with every Wind of Doctrine Ep. Hali's Peace-maker p. 202. Reason of the many Errours that have been so rife in these late Times Men have not lyen fast in the Building upon the Foundation and therefore it is that they have so easily been tumbled up and down like loose Stones Converse with your Catechism 4. And confirm your Belief of the Divinity of the Scripture by getting rational Evidence and an inward Sence and Experience of it And search and study the Scriptures and compare the Doctrines taught by Men with the Word of God and try and examine them by that Rule 5. Again Beg the Spirit of Truth to lead and guide you into all necessary Truth As it is not a strong Constitution that will secure you from the Plague so it is not your best Parts that will preserve you from the Infection of Errour if the Spirit of God do not keep and protect you if the Spirit of Christ the Spirit of Truth withdraw from you 6. Add to all your earnest Endeavour to get your Hearts * Rom. 12.2 Heb. 13.9 2 Pet. 3.17 18. renewed and seasoned and * Rom. 12.2 Heb. 13.9 2 Pet. 3.17 18. stablish'd with Grace which will prove an excellent Preservative a soveraign Antidote and Defensative against the Contagion and Infection of Errour Any Errour will easily slip into an ignorant uncatechized Head and an unmortified unsanctified ungrà cious Heart The †2 Tim. 3 6. silly Women that were led captive were such as were laden with Sins led away with divers Lusts So they were ‖ Jude vers 4. ungodly Men who turned the Grace of our God into lasciviousness and denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ They that walk in loose Garments soon take Wind Loose Lives will gather in and breed loose Principles If you don't take in sufficient Ballast of Grace to settle you you will be tossed to and fro and carried about with every Wind of strange Doctrine If you want a good Biass of Sincerity for God carnal Interests and Ends will easily mis-lead you If you be devoid and destitute of Grace you will be proud and conceited rash and unwary you will never distrust your selves you will never weigh and consider Things well before you take them up Want of Grace will also breed an Itch of vain Curiosity in your Minds and cause you to linger and hanker after Novelties Further your depraved Wills will have a malign Influence on your Understandings and your carnal Affections will too often bribe and pervert your Judgments so that whatever your Wills and Affections are vehemently set upon must be allowed by the Authority of your Judgments and secretly if not openly maintained and pleaded for Those various Opinions about the Chief Good might arise and proceed from their Over-affection to some created and inferiour Good Your foul Stomach will infect your Brain your unsound Heart will cause a corrupt Head And an ill Life will engage you to entertain and take up such corrupt Principles as may favour and foster your Viciousness give allowance and countenance to your Wickedness Your Sin
render its ordinary Motions ineffectual and the common Grace of God unsuccessful Thy continued Delaies are likely to render thee more unteachable and untractable more incurable and unchangeable more full of false Opinions of God and his Waies and strong Prejudices and Heart-risings against Religious Practices more setled in sinful Waies and Courses Thy chosen Delaies will insensibly draw on sinful Habits and evil Customs which will prove and become a second Nature and be hardly left and difficultly laid down These poisonous Roots will not be easily pluckt up These * Jer. 13.23 [a] Naturalists say that Spots are so deep in the Leopard that if you take off the Skin they will appear in the very Flesh Leopard's Spots will not be quickly fetcht out Thou wilt be as unable to do it thy self as an Ethiopian is to change his Skin and it is a †2 Tim. 2.25 peradventure whether God will cure a customary habitual procrastinating Sinner Upon thy wilful long Delaies God may deny thee the seasonable Aids and soveraign Auxiliaries of his Grace suspend the Influences withdraw the Assistances cease the Motions and discontinue the Strivings of his Spirit and so all outward Means enjoyed may prove ineffectual for your Good God may withhold his special Grace in Judgment for your Non-improvement of common Grace Yea thy obstinate Delaies may provoke God to ‖ Luk. 19.42 hide the things of thy Peace from thy Eyes to deliver thee over into Satan's Power to leave thee to thy self to (*) Ps 81.12 give thee up to thy own Heart's Lusts to judicial Blindness of Mind to dreadful carnal Security and horrible [b] Illud est cor durum quod non trepidat ad nomen cordis duri Bern. Hardness of Heart to a * Rom. 1.28 reprobate Mind and a †1 Tim. 4 2. seared cauterized Conscience By way of Punishment of thy Delaies God may suffer thee to sin on till thou comst to be ‖ Eph. 4.19 past feeling and not help thee to recover any spiritual Sence in a dying Hour but at last (*) Rom. 1.28 give the Spirit of Slumber or let thee fall into the lamentable Condition of downright Desperation Of each of which a learned [c] Gr. Exempl part 3. §. 15. p. 559. Writer gives us a very notable and remarkable Example Of the former out of [d] Biblioth Frat. Pol. Tom. 3. Petrus Damianus of one Gunizo a factious and ambitious Person to whom the Tempter gave notice of his approaching Death but when any Man preached Repentance to him out of a strange Incuriousness or the Spirit of Reprobation he seem'd like a dead and unconcerned Person in all other Discourses he was awake and apt to answer And of the latter out of Venerable [e] L. 5. c. 15. Hist Gent. Anglor Bede of a drunken Monk who upon his Death-bed seem'd to see Hell open'd and a Place assign'd him near to Caiaphas and those who crucified our dearest Lord. The Religious Persons that stood about his Bed call'd on him to repent of his Sins to implore the Mercies of God and to trust in Christ but he answered This is no time to change my Life the Sentence is past upon me and it is too late There may be no room and place for Consideration and Repentance upon thy Death-bed either through senslessness and stupidity caused by the special Disease of thy Body or the sad and direful Divine Judgment or through too quick a feeling too deep a sense of pungent corporal Pain or exquisite Torture of Mind and Conscience the Tempter busily setting in with thy own guilty awaken'd Conscience to aggravate thy Sins to thy Terrour and Amazement and to load thee heavily till thou faintest sinkest and fallest crusht and broken under the Burden But suppose thou shouldst stand at that Day in much more moderate tolerable Circumstances yet thou maiest be distracted and diverted with the Thoughts of making or altering thy Will setling thy Estate disposing and ordering the Affairs of thy Family stating and clearing the Interests of thy Relatives And when thou art about to bid thy final and last Farewel to every thing in this World that is near and dear to thee and art under a strange and strong apprehension of hastily approaching Death and Judgment 't will prove a very hard task to gain and maintain a well-composed and undisturbed Mind in the management of thy great Soul-concerns But admit thou shouldst enjoy much Freedom of Thoughts and have the greatest Advantage imaginable of a quiet sedate Frame and Temper in the Procedure of that most busy Day and Hour yet is there a very formidable Danger of thy dying and departing without rational Satisfaction about the Goodness and Safety of thy State and Condition or any comfortable Evidence of the Divine Acceptance of thy Death-bed Performance 3. To delay the Redemption of thy Time is highly unreasonable and very [c] Non est crede mihi sapientis dicere Vivam Sera nimis vita est crastina vive hodie Martial l. 1. epigr. 16. Cras vives hodie jam vivere Postume serum est Ille sapit quisquis Postume vixit heri Id. l. 5. epigr. 58. foolish to put off the building of a spiritual Temple in thy Soul as the Jews excused their Neglect of re-edifying the material Temple by saying * Hag. 1.2 The Time is not come What Folly is it to [d] Perdis hodiernum quod in manu fortunae positum est disponis quod in tua dimittis Sen. de brev vit c. 9. lose the present which God has put in thy own hand and to determine and dispose of the future Time which only and wholly rests in the Hand of God and is quite out of thine To Put all to the venture of repenting and securing thy State hereafter when so many have ruin'd and undone themselves without Remedy or Recovery by lingring and loitering Delaies What a plain and apparent Self-delusion is it to except against and wave the present Time because it is present since when that Time which now is future shall become present you must then put that off for the same reason that now you put this by What a silly Cheat dost thou put upon thy self while thou dost pretend a purpose to make but a very short Delay a Desire to enjoy thy Sin but a little longer it may be but this once more and a Resolution then to part and shake hands with it for ever when as the very next touch may deadly infect thee the very next taste poison thee one other Closure with sensual Pleasure will in all probability more deeply enamour thee one farther embrace of Sin more bewitch and fascinate inebriate and intoxicate thee one step more presently carry thee into a Snare that will entangle and hold thee fast for ever Is it likely that thou wilt leave thy Sin when thou shalt be more in love with it more enslaved to it and