to fight the good fight of faith when thy strength and activity fails thee Tunc vivere incipere cùm desinendum est indè velle vitam inchoare quò pauci produxerunt as the Heathen sayes Then to begin to live when you should die and to date your life from that time to which the life but of a few is lengthned God under the Law would have no blinde or lame for sacrifice as in Deut. 25. 21. The first-born were holy to God and he required not onely the first-fruits but the first of those first-fruits Exod. 23. 19. All which was to signifie unto us that young years offered to God are a sweet-smelling savour in his nostrils 2 Consider This is most for your comfort that you may in time of age affliction and death with peace and comfort reflect upon your youth the mispence whereof does oft cause sad reflections of spirit in riper years and fills the soul with horrour and amazement Job was made to possess the iniquities of his youth his youth had the pleasure of those sins which his age now felt the smart of When guilt shall flie in the face of an awakened conscience and God for them shall exercise the soul with inward terrours as Job describes the condition of a wicked man Job 20. 11. Poenis quas sibi sceleribus adolescentiae acquisivit sayes Beza with those punishments which are the issue of the sins of youth nay though God hath upon your repentance pardoned those sins yet he may in old age chasten thee for them then you may come sadly to speak that language Rom. 6. 21. What fruit have we in those sins whereof we are now ashamed These questionless cost David many a sad tear and mournful prayer as we see in Psalm 25. 7. Remember not the sins of my youth As it is in the body licentious youth contracts those distempers which are the burden and sorrow of old age filling them with pains and aches So it is in the soul those sins which by mispence of time youth rush into may prove the sorrow and vexation of age but well-improved youth makes age comfortable 3. Consider It will be an Antidote and prevention against those sins which youth is most liable and prone to Youth having less wisedome to discover and less strength to resist and withstand temptation to sin more open to solicitation by reason of unruly passions bad examples and councel of others is most liable to sin Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way saith David Psal 119. 9. these being most subject to defilements David answers the question By taking heed thereto according to thy word and one of the precepts of that word is To redeem our time Flee youthful lusts saies Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 2. 22. the flames of lust are most apt to enkindle by the heat of youth Cereus in vitium flecti monitoribus asper Horat. de Arte Poet. So Horace Youth is wax to every impression of vice and the Poet gives you the reason of it Quaritur Aegysthus quare sit factus adulter In promptu causa est desidiosus erat It was his idle mispence of time which blew up and fomented the sparkes of lust for Otia si tollas periêre Cupidinis arcus 4. Consider It is your gathering time and an age most capable of improvement as tender twigs most flexible as wax fit for good impressions Whereas if this time be mispent the heart grows hard through custome in sin the devil gets stronger possession the memory grows more unfaithful the understanding weaker God is provoked in a judicial way to take away your gifts and parts which you justly forfeit by a careless wrapping your talents in a napkin The Wiseman sends such sluggards to the Ant to learn wisedome 〈◊〉 provideth her meat in summer Prov. 6. 8. So soon as the sun ariseth the bee flies abroad to gather in her honey in youth our parts are active and vigorous therefore then redeem your time 5. Consider This will both sweeten and facilitate employment to you afterward The sins of youth oft make men unserviceable in riper years or if repented of and forsaken yet they are oft a reproach and discouragement to men in their employments Ephraim was ashamed because she bore the reproach of her youth Jer. 31. 19. S. Paul therefore writing to his young Timothy enformes him how to secure himself from contempt These things command and teach so Let no man despise thy youth 1 Tim. 4. 11 12. Sins of youth lay men open to reproach even then when afterwards they prove eminent serviceable in the work of God Besides mispence of youth must necessarily make our service and employment abroad more difficult for men to have their seed to seek when a harvest is expected from them whereas your laborious improvement of this time makes service easy and familiar when having laid up a treasure and stock of knowledge he is able as the Scribe instructed to the kingdome of Heaven to bring out of his treasure things new and old Matth. 13. 52. 6. Redeem this time in conformity to Christ and the best Saints Christ was at twelve years of age about his Fathers business Luk. 2. 44. Samuel in his childhood was dedicated to the Lord. 1. Sam. 1. 28. Timothy from a child redeemed his time to the study of the Scripture 2 Tim. 3. 15. And it is recorded as a just commendation of that good Prince Josiah that while yet young he began to seek after the God of David his father and at twelve years old zealously appeared against Idolatry 2 Chron. 34. 3. Let us then tread in the footsteps of these Saints and be followers of them as they were of Christ who redeemed his whole time to the service and glory of his Father II. The second rank of those who are most especially concerned in this is such men as are of greater abilities and opportunities To whom God gives ten talents he expects an improvement from them answerable to that they are intrusted with the improvement of five will not serve for him who hoth received ten To whom much is given of him much shall be required Luc. 12. 48. Mens great gifts and parts are ready to puff them up with pride S. Paul was in danger of this 2 Cor. 12. 8. and this is the abuse of the gifts of God which if rightly used and improved should not leaven us with pride but engage quicken us to more serviceableness for God and not censuring the gifts of others by which practise we either charge God for giving them no more or sacrifice sacrilegiously to our selves that we have so much when as we have nothing but what is received endeavour to improve and use our own III. The third rank such who by idleness and looseness have mispent much time formerly The Apostle Peter urgeth this 1 Pet. 4. 2 3. The later any of us have come into the vineyard the harder must we labour to
Sathans devices S. Paul met with many oppositions sometimes he had to do with loose Libertines who made the free grace he preached a cloak of maliciousness another while with proud Pharisaical Justiciaries who denied grace and cried up works the Apostle was to grapple with both these and so he laboured more abundantly then all The great Controversie of the 1 Cor. 15. 10 former age was with the proud Papist as S. Paul at Ephesus with the beast of Rome But he that will look now into the ministerie must reckon to deal with the subtil Socinian the loose Antinomian the canting Quaker the petulant Anabaptist the conceited Separatist the muddie Atheist we had need to provide our weapons before we go into the field and having so many spiritual Goliahs to encounter withall it is our concernment and duty to get our sling and our smooth stones out of the brook of the Scriptures by which we may strike them in the fore-head yea and to go down to the Philistines to sharpen our weapons I mean to furnish our selves with tongues and sciences and rational improvements to enervate the strength and subtilties and detect the vizards and fallacies which errour usually puts on to delude the ignorant and inconsiderate Scarce any of the Fathers had so many errours to oppose as S. Augustine the Pelagian on the one hand and the Manichee on the other so none more laborious then he having left us many monuments of his unwearied diligence whence he was stiled Malleus haereticorum Now so many endeavour to rase the foundation the spiritual builders should labour more in edifying the truth and Church of God the creeping in of so many wolves into the flock should put the Pastours upon more vigilancy and diligence now the darkness of errour and night of ignorance is upon us how should these stars shine in the firmament of the Church And while others so many Sanballats and Tobiahs endeavour to obstruct hinder and overthrow the truth we should endeavour to lay out our time to enoble and patronize it II. The open and abounding profaneness that is among us that Atheisme licentiousness contempt of God and his word and those other crying sins which run in the midst of the nation should powerfully provoke us to redeem our time and that upon a fourefold account 1. That we may discountenance and give a check to profaneness that our lives may be a constant standing reproofe to the wickedness of the times so the Apostle in this 5. of the Ephes enjoynes at ver 11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitfull works of darkness but rather reprove them but how shall that be done he tells us at ver 8. walk as the children of light and Philip. 2. 15. that ye may shine as lights amidst a crooked and perverse generation The more others lavish out and mispend this time in loose and licentious walking the more should we endeavour to redeem it by a strict and conscientious conversation 2. It will be a Christians praise and glory to be good in bad times to be good husbands when others are prodigals about us Thus S. Augustine gives a reason why God permitted Adam at first to be tempted That he might have had the more glory if he had used his lilibertie to resist and withstand that temptation Non mihi videtur saith he magnae laudis fuisse futurum hominem si propterea posset bene vivere quia nemo malè vivere suaderet It is less commendation to be good when we have no temptation to be bad but when in licentious times being on every side surrounded with temptations we go still on in a way of holiness this is our just praise and glory as it was of Lot to be righteous in the midst of unclean Sodome 3. In such times we are in most danger to be misled Piscator gives this reason why the profaneness of the times should put us upon the redeeming of the time quia periculum imminet piis à corruptelis mundi When it is as in 1 Joh. 5. 19. the whole world lies in wickedness the best are in great danger to be seduced either into errour sin or both we should therefore redeem the time that we may be able to prevent the one and oppose the other 4. Our redeeming the time may make the times better It is the evil of sin that make the dayes evil The Apostle speaking of the perillous times which should be in the last dayes in 2 Tim. 3. 1. he tells you the reason of it in verses 2 3 4 5. the latter of which viz. Having a form of godliness but denying the power I fear hath a great influence upon the evil of our dayes Now the onely way to amend the times is to amend our selves God would soon amend the times if once the men that live in the times were amended It was good counsel Daniel gives to Nebuchadnezzar Break off thy sins by righteousness and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it may be a lengthning of thy tranquillity All men cry out of the times but who cry out of or leave their sins which make the times so bad When the Israelites had sinned in making the calf Moses spends his time in prayer Exod. 32. It was Achans wedge that made it a bad day to Isreal when he was removed God was appeased Josh 7. Our times are evil let us not repiningly despond or quarrel but let us lay out our time in prayer and repentance to make them better And so much of the second General Thirdly Who are especially concerned in this Though indeed 3. General none can be exempted from this yet we shall see that some are more especially concerned in it and these I shall reduce to these six ranks I. Young ones These should especially redeem their time Young Merchants are most vigorous and active in their trading It is the Wisemans counsel Eccles 12. 1 Remember thy Creatour in the dayes of thy youth it briefly suggests several considerations which may provoke youth to a diligent improvement of their time as 1. Consider This is most worthy of and most acceptable unto God to give him the best of our time who best deserves it it is most unworthy of God to give him our feeble age when Satan hath had the strength of our youth spent in his service to give the spirits of the wine to Satan and the dregs to God Nonne pudet te id temporis bonae menti reservare quod in nullam rem conferre potest saith Seneca to give to God that time which the infirmities of age makes useless for any thing else Give me leave to make Mal. 1. 8. use of that of the Prophet Malachy Will the Prince think you entertain a cripled rebel who hath been all his dayes fighting against him under his enemies colours Wilt thou give the best of thy life unto Satan be under his service and think to list thy self under Christs banner
occasion by our idleness to reproach Learning and Religion too The Apostle therefore with whom I shall conclude the Doctrinal part of these words exhorts Walk in wisdome towards them that are without Redeeming the time Coloss 4. 5. Fourthly The improvement of this by some Application 4 General Application And the Application of this shall be onely twofold 1. To check and reprove mens mispence and mis-improvement of their time Nothing more precious yet nothing less regarded may we not complain of many who profess themselves Christians as Seneca does of the Heathens Magna pars vitae malè agentibus maxima Epist. 1. nihil agentibus tota aliud agentibus dilabitur We hold our time of God as our great Landlord and how are most like to bad Tenants who return little or no homage to him for it but improve Gods talents in the devils service Quem mihi dabis saith Seneca qui aliquod temporis pretium ponat qui diem aestimat Where shall we finde a man who sets a due value and estimate upon his time What between doing nothing and that which is worse then nothing sin most mens time slips away I onely suggest unto you this Time will have an end speedily and what will you do when God calls to an account of that time which you have spent upon your lusts and though it may seem to have been pleasant yet without repentance it will be very sad even as it fared with those jolly ones in Job 21. 12 13. They take the timbrel and harp and rejoyce at the sound of the organ They spend their dayes in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave and well were it for them if they might rest there but it will be more horrible as in verse 30 of that chapter The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction they shall be brought forth unto the day of wrath 2. To quicken us to a conscientious performance of this duty by a laborious improvement of our time This the Apostle presses 1. Thess 4. 11. That ye study to be quiet and do your own business and again in 2 Thess 3. 10 11. For even when we were with you this we commanded you that if any would not work neither should he eat For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Disorderly walking especially in mispending and mis-improving our time is very unsuitable to a Christian I shall therefore shew you briefly to what end and how you should improve your time conscientiously and so dismiss the Text. It must be done I. To the glory of God Whatsoever you do saith the Apostle do all to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10. 31. Did we consider this in the improving our time in our studies and ask our selves this question Can God have any glory from this kinde of studie it would certainly cut off the study of many unprofitable impertinent idle books which inable men onely for some idle frothy discourse to the dishonour of the great God Time is Gods creature and his talent therefore to be imployed onely to his glory II. To the good of others So the Apostle expressely Gal. 6. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 While we have time let us do good unto all That Romane Emperour set a just estimate upon his time who accounted that day lost in which he had done no good unto some This concerns those especially who are intrusted with the care of others Titus Vespasian was wont to say Hodie non imperavi quia nemini benefeci a speech worthy of an Emperour whose chief care should be for the publick good so should we also who are entrusted with the care of others account that day mis-spent in which we have not endeavored some way to better them Ut non negligunt opportunitatem lucrifaciendi errantes incredulos inter quos vivebant sayes Musculus so also the Apostle exhorts Coloss 4. 5. Walk wisely to them that are without redeeming the time III. To our own salvation neglecting no opportunity whereby we may promote it willingly engaging in every dutie and practise which hath a tendencie to it thus working out our salvation with Phil. 2. 12. fear and trembling But withall we must observe that this must be done 1. Presently lest it be too late As Thales being solicited to marrie when young answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is too soon when old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is too late so many who have thought much too soon to dedicate themselves to God in their age have sadly in the despair of their spirit cryed out It is too late let us resolve therefore as Elihu in Job Job 24. 32. If I have done iniquity I will do no more that is in mispending and mis-improving our time but in the present redeeming of it It is one of the master-pieces of Satan to destroy soules by tempting them to defer and delay the improvement of their time suggesting unto them It will be time enough afterward thus the yong Gallant is perswaded to spend his time in pride and vanity till he hath none left to pray repent and return in As a cunning usurer flatters his debtour tells him all will be well till he hath failed his day and then seizeson his land so Satan flatters men into security perswades them that they have day enough before them till they have sinned away their day of grace so God is provoked at last to give them up to that master whom they have served all their time to receive their wages in eternity of misery Cursed be that Proverb A young Saint an old Devil you do not oft see young Devils prove old Saints Solomon gives better advice Prov. 22. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will never depart from it and the Prophet Jeremiah It is good for a man that he bear Lam. 3. 27. the yoke in his youth the yoke of obedience as well as of affliction Let me reason then with you as S. Augustine did sometimes with himself Aug. Confess lib. 8. cap. 5. Quam diù cras cras quare non hodie Modò Modò non habent modum We should redeem every day as if it were our last Ille beatissimus est sui securus possessor qui crastinum sine solicitudine expectat Quisquis dixit vixi quotidie ad lucrum surget saith Seneca Senec. ep 12. We should without anxiety or solicitude expect a morrow and with diligence and conscience improve to day To day while it is called to day if ye will hear his voice c. Hebr. 3. 15. 2. Resolvedly lest you be hindered you will meet with many impediments much difficulty and many temptations to mispend your time we need therefore take up a resolution to go through so long as there is a Devil and a world without and flesh within we must expect to meet with