your time unnecessarily. O tell them you were not made for nothing! You are in a race, and must not stand still: you are in a fight, and must not cease. Your work is great; much of it is undone. Your enemies are not idle: death will not stop the judge is coming, and still beholds you: and heaven and hell are ready to receive our ending life, and tell us how we spent our time and can you find time to spare? You are not made as weather-cocks, to stand up on high for men to look at, and by turning about with every wind, to shew them which way it standeth. Turn not your lives into that curse, "You shall spend your strength in vain;" Levit. xxvi. 20. Believe it, time must be reviewed. The day is near, when every man of you had rather find it in your accounts, So many hours spent in self-examination and holy meditation; so many in reading the word of God; so many spent in fervent prayer; and so many in doing good to others,' than, So many spent in needless sports and pleasures; so many in idlenesses and vain discourses; and so many of the less necessary matters of the world.' Ask those that tempt you to misspend your time, whether at death and judgment they had rather themselves have a life of holy diligence to review, or a life consumed in vanity, and transitory delights. You will not suffer impertinences to interrupt your counsels and serious business in the world. You will tell intruders, that you are busy, and cannot have while to attend them. And are you going into heaven or hell, and have but a few days time of preparation (God knows how few), and yet can you have while to pass this precious time in vain? O what would you not give ere long for one of the hours that you now misspend! When the oath is performed, "That time shall be no longer!" Rev. x. 6. Wonderful! that men can find time for any thing, save that for which they had their time! Non quam bene vivant, sed quamdiu, considerant (inquit Seneca,) cum omnibus possit contingere ut bene vivant; ut diu, nulli.' To live well is both possible and necessary, and yet is disregarded. To live long, is neither possible nor necessary; and yet is sought by almost all. Incipiunt vivere cum desinendum est: immo quidam ante desierunt vivere, quam inciperent.' Sen. It is unseasonable we should begin to live, when we should make an end; but it is most unhappy to have made an end before they do begin. Pulchrum est (inquit idem,) consummare vitam ante mortem ; et expectare secure reliquam temporis partem.' Do the great work, and then you may comfortably spend the rest in waiting for the conclusion. Yet you have time, and leave, and helps: you may read and meditate, and pray if you will; but shortly time will be no more. O let not Satan insult over your carcases and tormented souls, and say, ' Now it is too late! Now mourn and repent as long as you will! Now pray, and cry, and spare not!' O use that faith which beholdeth the invisible world, and maketh future things as present, and then delay and loiter if you can then waste your hours in idleness or vanity if you dare! either light or fire shall awake you! 4. Suffer as believers. Fear not the wrath of man; but endure as seeing him that is invisible; Heb. xi. 27. Shew plainly, that you seek a better country; ver. 14. 16. Read often, Heb. xi. xii. Behold the kingdom prepared and secured for you by Christ, and then you will be indifferent which way the wind of human favour or applause shall sit; or what weather lunatic influences and aspects shall produce. Such a faith will make you, with Abraham, to turn your back on all, and engage in pilgrimage for an inheritance after to be received; though he knew not whither he went, (with a distinct, particular knowledge); Heb. xi. 8. As strangers and travellers, you will not be troubled to leave towns and fields, buildings and wealth, and walks behind you, as knowing that you were but to pass by them, desiring and seeking a better country, that is, a heavenly : `and you shall lose nothing by this passing by all in the world; for God will not be ashamed to be called your God; and he hath prepared for you a city; Heb. xi. 13, 16. Seriously respect the recompence of reward, and it will make you "choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the world ;" ver. 25, 26. Stephen's sight would cause Stephen's patience. Hold on as Christians: the end is near: "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us; looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him that endured such contradic tion of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied, and faint in your mind;" Heb. xii. 2, 3. You may well endure the buffeting and scorn, if you foresee the honour. You may well endure the crown of thorns, if you foresee the crown of glory: you may endure to be forsaken of all, if you see him that will never fail you nor forsake you. This foretaste of the rivers of pleasure with the Lord, will drown the taste of vinegar and gall. Whine not like worldlings that have lost their portion, when you are stript as bare as Job. If you are true believers, you have all still, for God is All: you have lost nothing; for faith hath made the world as nothing to you: and will you whine and vex yourselves for nothing? Can you call it nothing so frequently and easily in your prayers, and ordinary speech, and do you now recal this, or tell us by your serious grief, that you speak but in hypocrisy and jest. 'Frangitur nemo molestiâ adversorum, qui non capitur delectatione prosperorum.' August. Had there been less idolatrous love, there would have been less tormenting grief and care. Our life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that we possess. He is not happy that hath them, but he that neither needeth nor desireth them. Cum in his 'Cum in his quæ homines eripiunt, optant, custodiunt, nihil inveneris, non dico quod malis, sed quod velis.' Sen. Superfluity doth but burden and break down the corn that is too rank lodgeth; and the branches break that are overladen with fruit. Omnia quæ superfluunt nocent: segetem nimia sternit ubertas: rami onere fraguntur, ad maturitatem non pervenit fœcunditas : Idem quoque animis evenit, quos immoderata prosperitas rumpit; quia non tantum in aliorum injuriam, sed etiam in suam utuntur.' Sen. It is pleasure, and not pain, that is the world's most deadly sting. It hath never so much hurt us, as when it hath flattered us into delights or hopes. Et fera et piscis spe aliqua oblectante decipitur.' Sen. Hope is the bait; prosperity and pleasure the net, that souls are ordinarily ensnared by. Men lose not their soule for poverty, but for riches; nor for dishonour, but for honour; nor for sorrow, but for delight. The luxuriances of prosperity, bring us so frequently under the pruning hook. The surfeits and summer fruits of fulness and carnal contentments and delights, do put us to the trouble of our sicknesses and our physic. "How hardly shall rich men enter into heaven!" saith he that well knew who should enter. Saith Augustine, Difficile, immo impossibile est, ut præsentibus et futuris quis fruatur bonis : ut hic ventrem, et ibi mentem impleat: ut à deliciis ad delicias transeat; et in utroque seculo primus sit; ut in terrâ et in cœlo appareat gloriosus?' The hope is, that with God such human impossibilities are possible. But it is more terrible than desirable, to be put upon so great a difficulty. Sweet dishes will have wasps and flies; but most of them are drowned in their delights. Saith Boetius of Prosperity and Adversity; 'Illa fallit, hæc instruit: illa mendacium. specie bonorum mentes fruentium ligat: hæc cogitatione fragilis fælicitatis absolvit. Itaque illam videas ventosam fluentem, suique semper ignaram: hanc sobriam, succinctamque ac ipsius adversitatis exercitatione prudentem.' A full meal seems best in the eating; but a light meal is better the next day. More thank God in heaven for adversity, than for prosperity and more in hell cry out of the fruit of prosperity, than of adversity. Many did never look towards heaven, till affliction cast them on their backs, so that they could look no other way. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes," saith David, Psal. cxix. 71. "Before I was afflicted, I went astray;" ver. 76. : "In very faithfulness thou hast afflicted me;" ver. 75. One sight of heaven by faith will force you to reckon "that the sufferings of this present time are unworthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us;" Rom. viii. 18. To suffer for Christ and righteousness sake, is but to turn an unavoidable, fruitless pain, into that which being involuntary, is the more easy, and hath a great reward in heaven; Matt. v. 11, 12. And to part with that for a crown of life, which else we must part with for nothing. Worldly friends, and wealth, and honour, are summer fruit that will quickly fall. Hungry fowl know where it is harvest, At simul intonuit fugiunt.' Those that must dwell with you in heaven, are your sure and stedfast friends, Cætera fortunæ, &c.' Those that are now highest, and least acquainted with the tongue of malice, the unfaithfulness of friends, or rage of enemies, shall shortly say, Atque hæc exemplis quondam collecta priorum : Nunc mihi sunt propriis, cognita vera malis.” There is but the difference of an 'est' and an 'erit,' between their mirth and endless sorrows; their honour, and their endless shame; nor between our sorrow and our endless joy. Their final honour is to be embalmed, and their lust to be covered with a sumptuous monument, and their names extolled by the mouths of men, that little know how poor a comfort all this is to the miserable soul. In the height of their honour you may foresee the surgeon opening their bowels, and shewing the receptacles of the treasure of the epicure, and what remains of the price that he received for his betrayed soul. He cuts out the heart with a 'Hæ sedes livoris erant : jam pascua vermis;' you next tread on his interred corpse, that is honoured but with a 'Hic jacet,' Here lieth the body of such an one. And if he have honour to be magnified by fame or history, it is a fool-trap to ensnare the living, but easeth not the soul in hell. And shall we envy men such a happiness as this? What if they be able to command men's lives, and to hurt those that they hate for a little while? Is this a matter of honour or of delight? A pestilence is more honourable, if destroying be an honour. The devil is more powerful (if God permit him) to do men hurt, than the greatest tyrant in the world. And yet I hope you envy not his happiness, nor are ambitious to partake of it. If witches were not akin to devils, they would never sell their souls for a power to do hurt. And how little do tyrannical worldlings consider, that under a mask of government and honour, they do the same! Let the world then rejoice while we lament and weep. "Our sorrow shall be speedily turned into joy; and our joy shall no man then take from us;" John xvi. 20. 22. Envy not a dying man the happiness of a feather-bed, or a merry dream. You think it hard in them to deny you the liberties and comforts of this life, though you look for heaven; and will you be more cruel than the ungodly? Will you envy the trifling commodities and delights of earth, to those that are like to have no more, but to lie in hell when the sport is ended? It is unreasonable impatience that cannot endure to see them in silks and gallantry a few days, that must be so extremely miserable for ever. Your crumbs, and leavings, and overplus is their all. And will you grudge them this |