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A34193 Sermons preach'd on several occasions by John Conant.; Sermons. Selections Conant, John, 1608-1693.; Williams, John, 1636?-1709. 1693 (1693) Wing C5684; ESTC R1559 241,275 626

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treacherous strongly inclined to evil and ready to comply with all Temptations Jer. 17.9 The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked Having such a dangerous Inmate within our own Bosoms it stands us upon to walk circumspectly and to think our selves no longer safe than we keep a strict guard over our selves and carefully heed all our goings that we may never tread beside that narrow path which we are required to walk in 5. It concerns us to walk circumspectly in regard of the strict account we must hereafter give of all our ways Eccles 12.14 God will bring every work to judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil a 2 Cor. 5.10 We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad b Mat. 12.36 Of every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof at the day of judgment When they shall be accountable to God for their Omissions as well as for their Commissions Mat. 25.41 42 43. They who verily believe they must be called to so strict an account how can they think they can ever walk strictly and circumspectly enough Believing and expecting this great day of reckoning 2 Pet. 3.11 what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness As the Apostle speaks 6. It behoves us to walk circumspectly in regard of the high and everlasting concernment of our ways and walking while we are here Ab hoc momento pendet eternitas As we demean our selves so we must fare hereafter for ever As a Man soweth here so shall he reap hereafter Gal. 6.7 8. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption and he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting A short time is here allotted us to be improved for our everlasting happiness in another World If this time be neglected it will not be long e're the things belonging to our peace will be hid from our Eyes There will thenceforth be no more offers of Mercies no more opportunities of making our peace with God There will be no more place to Eternity for redeeming time and correcting the Errours and Miscarriages of our heedless and uncircumspect walking O then how great should our care how exact should our circumspection be while the day of grace lasteth and while opportunity is afforded us of laying up a good Foundation for the time to come that we may lay hold of Eternal Life I come now to the uses of this point Is it the Duty of every Christian to walk circumspectly VSE 1. Then let no Man take offence at the strictness and circumspection of any who endeavour to conform themselves to the Rule as exactly as they can Let no Man judge so much Care and Circumspection to be needless Can any Man be too careful where the injunctions of care heedfulness circumspection and watchfulness are so many so peremptory and absolute and where our Concernment is so high and important and that upon so many accounts If any cannot bring their own Hearts to be willing to live by the Rule and to conform to it yet let them not condemn or censure others especially seeing the Holy Ghost hath noted it as a chief point of true Wisdom thus to walk and branded the neglect thereof with folly as we shall see afterwards But if any will yet be wise in their own Eyes and reproach the wisdom of God as foolishness let them hear what God saith concerning such Jer. 8.9 They have rejected the word of the Lord and what wisdom is in them Whatever for the present they may judge of the strictness of such as endeavour to keep in the narrow way that leadeth to Life the time is coming when they will be of another mind When they come to stand before the Tribunal of Christ to be accountable not only for all the more notorious Irregularities and Extravagancies of their Life but for every idle word O then they will acknowledge that the circumspection and watchfulness which they now deride and laugh at and look upon as folly would have stood them in some stead Then they will be convinced that the most circumspect Man is the wisest Man Then they will say of the sincerely pious and strictly conscientious person whom they now contemn as the Author of the Book of Wisdom brings them in speaking Wisd 5.3 4 5. They shall change their minds saith he and sigh for grief of mind and say within themselves This is he whom we sometime had in derision and in a parable of reproach We fools thought his life madness and his end without honour How is he counted among the children of God and his portion is among the saints VSE 2. Is it the Duty of every Christian to walk circumspectly Then how much do they fail and come short of their Duty who walk at all adventures and live by no Rule Who regard not at all how they walk or where they tread This is that despising of our ways which Solomon makes to be so dangerous and destructive Pro. 19.16 He that despiseth his ways shall die that is he that is of so loose careless and heedless a temper that he rambles up and down like a drunken man or a mad-man without any consideration or regard of his way that minds not considers not his way whether it be safe or dangerous but on he posts with full speed through Dirt and Stones over Bogs and Quagmires upon Pits and Precipices all is alike to him He that thus lives hand over head takes the ready course to destroy his own Soul This is noted concerning Jehu 2 Kin. 10.31 a man of a rash and precipitant Spirit that he took no heed to walk-in the Law of the Lord God of Israel with all his Heart And this is a part of the Character of the ungodly man Psa 50.17 that he casts God's Words behind him where it might be sure to be out of his Eye as not caring to look upon it or regard it for the regulating of his Life and the due ordering of his Conversation thereby Whithersoever the impetuous violence of such men's corrupt nature hurries them thither speed they without any regard either of their Duty or of the issues of their sinful courses Eccl. 5.1 They consider not that they do evil saith Solomon but rush into sin as the horse rusheth into the battle Jer. 8.6 Though God be in a readiness to meet them in their ways of sin and to withstand them as an armed man yet they go on daringly and presumptuously even running upon the thick bosses of his buckler as the foolhardiness of such rash and bold Sinners is described Job 15.26 VSE 3. Let us all be perswaded to walk more circumspectly to
redeem time and which the Apostle chiefly aims at in this place as hath been said 3. Time must be redeemed for performance of the duties and offices of love to our Neighbours whether they be such as concern their Souls or their Bodies 1. With relation to their Souls time must be redeemed for teaching instructing counselling advising comforting admonishing and reproving them as there shall be cause for it and as their conditions shall require it 2. With relation to their Bodies time must be redeemed for looking after them providing for them and ministring such reliefs and succours to them as they shall stand in need of But above all time must be redeemed for our own Souls and for the things that refer to our spiritual and everlasting welfare 3. How is the time to be redeemed A. By using our utmost diligence to make the best improvement of it that we can And for our help and furtherance therein it will concern us 1. To be careful that we rightly divide and distribute our time allotting such a proportion of it for attending the duties of our particular Callings so much for necessary refreshings so much for holy duties and so for the rest of those things which necessarily require some part of our time 2. To be ever watchful against all Incroachers upon our time and the principal Thieves of our time which will be every day attempting to steal away some part of it What these Thieves of time are every one best knows who is best acquainted with his own Temptations and the circumstances of his Condition 3. He should daily call himself to an account and enquire how he hath imployed his time and what use he hath made of it And where he finds he hath mispent any part of it he should be humbled for it and resolve to make amends by greater care in husbanding his time for the future And this he should especially be careful to do where through his carelesness he hath misimployed or vainly squandred away that time which should have been spent in the Service of God and in the Duties that more immediatly refer to his Soul and more directly tend to the promoting of the good thereof But you will say If a man should every day thus reckon with himself and call himself to an account concerning the imploying of every part of his time this would be a very irksome and tedious course Who would endure to be so strict and severe to himself as to be accountable to himself for every hour in the day This were an intolerable burthen a yoke too heavy to be born To this I answer 1. That whether we be willing to be accountable to our selves for our time daily or no we must be accountable to God for it for every hour of it And the best way to render our Account to God more easie is to be daily calling our selves to an account He that doth this and doth it as he ought makes even Reckonings between God and his own Soul every day 2. We may not think to get to Heaven so easily as to undergo nothing in our way thither that may be tedious and unacceptable to our corrupt Nature They who may hope to go to Heaven must deny themselves and cross the sinful Inclinations of their Nature they must ever and anon be rigid and severe to themselves they must be willing to take pains Luk. 13.14 ● Pet. 1. ●0 Pail 3.13 14. and to strive to enter in at the strait gate They must give all diligence to make their calling and election sure Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before they must press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God If men dream of getting to Heaven without labour and difficulty without offering some violence to their depraved and sinful Natures they are not likely to come thither Undoubtedly 't is not for nothing that our Saviour hath declared Matth. 7.14 That narrow is the way and strait is the gate that leadeth unto life 'T is a severe passage that we have and deserving to be seriously considered by all slothful Christians that would go to Heaven so as it might cost them nothing If the righteous scarcely be saved 1 Pet. 4.18 where shall the ungodly and sinner appear If the most righteous man after all the care and diligence which he hath used and the pains which he hath taken to secure his Soul be scarce saved at last if all that he could do be but just enough to bring him to Heaven shall any man think to loiter away his time here and wast it as he pleaseth and yet make account to get to Heaven as well as those who have been most careful and sollicitous most diligent and industrious in the use of all good means to prevent the everlasting miscarrying of their Souls Let no man so deceive himself whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap As men have been sollicitous and diligent or careless and slothful about the concernments of their Souls here so must they expect to fare hereafter They that sow to the flesh Gal. 6.7.8 shall of the flesh reap corruption And they that sow to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting But you will say My Condition is such that how careful soever I be about what concerns my Soul I can redeem but a very little time for things of that nature My particular Calling so continually takes me up that I can hardly gain one quarter of an hour in a day from it to be spent upon any thing else I answer 1. This may sometimes be through a man 's own fault Perhaps he takes more upon him and incumbers himself with more business than he ought No man should so intangle himself with the Affairs of this World as to shut out better things Better let part of the World go than indanger the loss of your Soul By so grasping the World as to lose your Soul you would be a sorry gainer in the end 2. But supposing a man's Calling to be such as very little time can be redeemed from it for heavenly things yet he must remember Luke 10.42 that one thing is needful absolutely and indispensably necessary and therefore he must find time for that one great thing whatever else he omitted Earthly things must so far give way to heavenly things as that our Souls and eternal concernments be not neglected 3. But yet however it must be considered That God doth not require the same portion of time from all men Persons whose Condition is low and strait as to outward things and some others also whose time is necessarily and unavoidably taken up with the duties of their particular Calling may satisfy themselves in allowing much less time for spiritual things than others who are less straitned and more at liberty But as for such as have more leisure they may not think that no more is expected of