evil. Who will thank you for giving physic, or food, or clothing to the dead? Or pitying the poor when it is too late? In time all this may be accepted.

Direct. v. Remember that if thou omit the season, thou art left to uncertainties both for time, and means, and grace.' Lose this time, and for aught thou knowest, thou losest all. Or if thou have time, it may be curst with barrenness, and never more may fruit grow on it. Preachers may be taken from thee: and gracious company may be taken from thee: helps and means may be turned into hindrances, and opposition, and strong temptations: and then you will find what it was to neglect the season! Or if you have the continuance of all helps and means, how know you that God will set in by his grace, and bless them to you, and move your hearts? He may resolve that if you resist him now, his Spirit shall strive with you no more. If while it is called to

day, you will harden your hearts, he may resolve to leave you to the hardness of Pharaoh, and to get himself a name upon you, and use you as vessels of wrath, prepared by your neglect and obstinacy for destruction.

Direct. vi. Bethink you how all the creatures keep their proper seasons, in the service which God hath appointed them for you.' The sun riseth and setteth in its season, and keepeth its diary, and annual course, and misseth not a minute. So do the other celestial motions. You have day and night, and seedtime, and harvest, summer and winter, spring and fall, and all exactly in their seasons. "Yea, the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming but my people know not the judgment of the Lord "." Shall only man neglect his season?

Direct. VII. Consider how you know and observe the season for your wordly labours, and should you not much more do so in greater things?' You will not plough when you should reap; nor do the work of the summer in the winter. You will not lie in bed all day, and go about your business in the night. You will be inquisitive, that you may be skilful in the seasons, for your benefit or safety in the world: and should you not much more be so for a better world? O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the

P Jer. viii. 7.

sky! but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" As at harvest you look for the fruit of your land, so doth God in season expect fruit from you'. The "godly" are “ like a tree that is planted by the river's side, which bringeth forth its fruit in season"." Shall worldlings know their season, and shall not we?

Direct. VIII. Consider how vigilant the wicked are to know and take their season to do evil.' And how much more should we be so in doing good! Seducers will take the opportunity to deceive. The thief and the adulterer will take the season of secresy and darkness. The ambitious and covetous will take the season for profit and preferment. The malicious watch their seasons of revenge. And have we not more need and more encouragement than they? Is it time for them to be building their houses, and growing great by covetousness and oppression, and is it not time for you to be honouring God, and providing for your endless life? They "cannot sleep unless they do evil';" and can you sleep securely while your time passeth away, and your work is undone?

Direct. IX. Remember that the devil watcheth the season of temptation to destroy you.' He prevaileth much by taking the time: when he seeth you disarmed, forgetting God, in secure prosperity, fittest to hearken to his temptations. The same temptations out of season might not prevail. And will you let your enemy outdo you?

Direct. x. Consider how earnest you are with God in your necessities and distress, not only to relieve and help you, but to do it speedily and in season.' You would rather have him prevent the season, than to let it pass. You are impatient till deliverance come, and can hardly stay the time till it be ripe. When you are in pain and sickness, you would be delivered speedily you are ready to cry, "How long, Lord, how long?" And as David, "The time, yea, the set time is come"." "Make no longer tarrying, O my God!" It would not satisfy you if God should say, I will ease you of your pain the next year. Why then should you neglect the time of duty, and use so many delays with God? He giveth you all your mercies in their season; why

9 Matt. xvi. 3.

Prov. iv. 16.

r Mark xii. 2.
u Psal. cii. 13.

• Psal. i. 3.
x Psal. xl. 17.

then do you not in season give up yourselves to his love and service? when you have his promise, that you shall “reap in due season if you do not faint "."

Tit. 3. Directions Practical for Redeeming Time.

Direct. 1. The first point in the art of redeeming time, is, to dispatch first with greatest care and diligence, the greatest works of absolute necessity, which must be done, or else we are undone for ever.'. First see that the great work of a sound conversion or sanctification be certainly wrought within you. Make sure of your saving interest in Christ: get proof of your adoption and peace with God, and right to everlasting life. Be able to prove to your consciences from the Word of God, and from your regenerate, heavenly hearts and lives, that your souls are justified and safe, and may comfortably receive the news of death, when ever it shall be sent to call you hence. And then, when you have done but this much of your work, you will incur no such loss of time, as will prove the loss of your souls or happiness. Though still there is much more work to do, for yourselves and others, yet when this much is soundly done, you have secured the main. If you lose the time in which you should be renewed by the Spirit of Christ, and in which you should lay up your treasure in heaven, you are lost for ever. Be sure therefore that you look first to this: and then if you lose but the time in which you might have grown rich or got preferment, your loss is tolerable; you know the worst of it; you may see to the end of it. Yea, if you lose the time in which you should increase in holiness, and edify others, the loss is grievous; but yet it will not lose you heaven. Therefore as Solomon directeth the husbandman, "Prepare thy work without and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house ":" so I advise you, to see first that the necessary work be done; when that is done, and well done, you may go quietly and cheerfully about the rest: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness;" O what a deal is done when this is done!

Direct. 11. Learn to understand well the degrees of du

ties, which is the greater and which the less, that when two seem to require your time at once, you may know which of them to prefer.' Not only to know which is simply and in itself the greatest, but which is the greatest for you, and at that season, and as considered in all the circumstances. A great part of the art of redeeming time, consisteth in the wise discerning and performing of this; to give precedency to the greatest duty. He loseth his time, who is getting a penny when he might get a pound; who is visiting his neighbour, when he should be attending his prince; who is weeding his garden, when he should be quenching a fire in his house, though he be doing that which in itself is good. So is he losing his time, who is preferring his body before his soul; or man before God; or indifferent things before necessary; or private duties before public; or less edifying before the more edifying; or sacrifice before necessary mer cy. The order of good works I have shewed you before, Chap. iii. Direct. 10. which you may peruse.

Direct. III. Be acquainted with the season of every duty, and the duty of each season; and take them in their time.' And thus one duty will help on another: whereas misplacing them and disordering them, sets them against one another, and takes up your time with distracting difficulties, and loseth you in confusion. As he that takes the morning hour for prayer, or the fittest vacant hour, shall do it quietly, without the disturbance of his other affairs; when if the season be omitted, you shall scarce at all perform it, or almost as ill as if you did it not at all: so is it in point of conscience, reproof, reading, hearing, meditating, and every duty. A wise and well-skilled Christian should bring his matters into such order, that every ordinary duty should know his place, and all should be as the links of one chain which draw on one another; or as the parts of a clock or other engine, which must be all conjunct, and each right placed. A workman that hath all his tools on a heap or out of place, spends much of the day in which he should be working in looking for his tools: when he that knoweth the place of every one, can presently take it, and lose no time. If my books be thrown together on a heap, I may spend half the day in looking for them when I should use them:

but if they be set in order, and I know their places, it spares So is it in the right timing of our duties.

me that time. Direct, IV. Live continually as under the government of God; and keep conscience tender, and in the performance of its office; and always be ready to render an account to God and conscience of what you do.' If you live as under the government of God, you will be still doing his work; you will be remembering his judgment; you will be trying your work whether it be such as he approveth; this will keep you from all time-wasting vanities. If you keep conscience tender, it will presently check and reprehend you for your sin: and when you lose but a minute of time, it will tell you of the loss: whereas a "seared conscience" is "past feeling," and will give you over to "lasciviousness," and will make but a jest at the loss of time: or at least will not effectually tell you either of the sin or loss. If you keep conscience to its office, it will ask you frequently, what you are doing? and try your works: it will take account of time when it is spent, and ask you, what you have been doing? and how you have spent every day and bour? And (as Seneca could say) "He will be the more careful what he doth, and how he spends the day, who looks to be called to a reckoning for it every night." This will make the foreseen day of judgment have such a continual awe upon you, as if you were presently going to it; while conscience, with respect to it, is continually forejudging you. Whereas they that have silenced or discarded conscience, are like schoolboys that bolt their master out of doors, who do it with a design to spend the time in play, which they should have spent in learning: but the afterreckoning pays for all.

Here, for the further direction of your consciences, I shall lay you down a few rules, for the right spending of your time. 1. Spend it in nothing (as a deliberate moral act) which is not truly, directly, or remotely an act of obedience to some law of God: (of mere natural acts, which are no objects of moral choice, I speak not.) 2. Spend it in nothing which you know must be repented of. 3. Spend it in nothing which you dare not, or may not warrantably pray for a blessing a blessing on from God. 4. Spend it in nothing ⚫ Ephes. iv. 19. 1 Tim. iv. 2.