(5.) FiftMy, I answer, That it is our duty to redeem time from all our secular businesses for private prayer.^ All sorts of Christians, whether bond or free, rich or poor, high or low, superiors or inferiors, are expressly charged by God to redeem time for prayer, for private prayer, as well as for other holy. exercises : Col. iv. 2, 3, ' Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving ; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds.'
But here some may object and say. We have so much business to do in the world that we have no time for prayer. The apostle answers this objection in verse 5, ' Walk in wisdom towards them that are with- . out, redeeming the time.' So Eph. v. 16, ' Redeeming the time, because the days are evil ;' B^ayopa^6//.£voi rhv xai^hv, or buying out, or gaining the time. The words are a metaphor taken from merchants, who prefer the least profit that may be gained, before their pleasures or delights, closely following their business whilst the markets are at best. A merchant when he comes to a mart or fair, takes the first season and opportunity of buying his commodities ; he puts it not off to the hazard of an even- ing, or to the next morning, in hopes to have a better bargain, but he improves the present season, and buys before the market is over.
Others carry the words thus : ' Purchase at any rate all occasions and opportunities of doing good, that so ye may thereby, in some sort, redeem that precious jewel of time which you have formerly lost' As travellers that have loitered by the way, or stayed long at their inn, when they find night coming upon them, they mend their pace, and go as many miles in an hour as they did before in many. Though time let slip is physically irrecoverable, yet in a moral consideration, it is accounted as regained, when men double their care, diligence, and endeavours to redeem it. The best Christian is he that is the greatest monopoliser of time for private prayer. No Christian to him that redeems time from his worldly occasions and his lawful comforts and recreations, to be with God in his closet. David having tasted of the sweetness, goodness, and graciousness of God, cannot keep his bed, but will borrow some time from his sleep, that he might take some turns in paradise, and pour out his soul in prayer and praises, when no eye was open to see him, nor no ear open to hear him, but all were asleep round about him, Ps. Ixiii. 6. Ps. cxix. 62, ' At midnight will I arise to give thanks unto thee,' Verse 147, 'I have prevented the dawning * of the morning, and cried.' David was up and at private prayer before daybreak. David was no sluggish Christian, no slothful Christian, no lazy Christian : he used to be in his closet when others were sleeping in their beds. So ver. 148, ' Mine eyes prevent the night-watches, ^that I might meditate in thy word.' So Ps. cxxx. 6, ' My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning ; I say, more than they that watch for the morning.' Look, as the weary sentinel in a dark, cold, wet night, waits and peeps, and peeps and waits for the appearance of the morning ; so David did wait and peep, and peep and
^ It is said of blessed Hooper, that he was spare of diet, spare of words, and sparest of time.
Mat. VI. 6.] the privy key of heavex. 205
wait for the first and fittest season to pour out his soul before God in a comer. David would never suffer his worldly business to justle out holy exercises ; he would often borrow time from the world for private prayer, but he would never borrow time from private prayer to bestow it upon the world.
Mr Bradford, the martyr, counted that hour lost wherein he did not some good, either with his pen, tongue, or purse.
Ignatius, when he heard a clock strike, would use to say, ' Now I have one hour more to answer for.'
So the primitive Christians would redeem some time from their sleep, that they might be with God in their closets, as Clemens observes.
And I have read of Theodosius [Nicephorus] the emperor, that after the variety of worldly employments relating to his civil affairs in the day time were over, how he was wont to consecrate the greatest part of the night to the studying of the Scriptures and private prayer ; to which purpose he had a lamp so artificially made, that it supplied itself with oil, that so he might no way be interrupted in his private retire- ments.
That time ought to be redeemed, is a lesson that hath been taught by the very heathens themselves. It was the saying of Pittacus, one of the seven wise men, ' Know time, lose not a minute.' And so Theo- phrastus used to say, that ' Time is of precious cost.' And so Seneca : 'Time is the only thing,' saith he, 'that we can innocently be covetous of; and yet there is nothing of which many are more lavishly and profusely prodigal.' And Chrestus, a sophister of Byzantium in the time of Hadriauus the emperor, he was much given to wine ; yet he always counted time so precious, that when he had misspent his time all the day, he would redeem it at night.
When Titus Vespasian, who revenged Christ's blood on Jerusalem, returned victor to Rome, remembering one night as he sat at supper with his friends, that he had done no good that day, he uttered this memorable and praiseworthy apophthegm, Amid, diem perdidi, 'My friends, I have lost a day.''
Chilo, one of the seven sages, being asked what was the hardest thing in the world to be done, answered, ' To use and employ a man's time well.'
Cato held, that an account must be given, not only of our labour, but also of our leisure. And ^lian gives this testimony of the Lacedaemo- nians, ' that they were hugely covetous of their time, spending it all about necessary things, and suffering no citizen either to be idle or play.' And, saith another, * We trifle with that which is most precious, and throw away that which is our greatest interest to redeem.'
Certainly, these heathens will rise in judgment, not only against Domitian the Roman emperor, who spent much of his time in killing of flies ; nor only against Archimedes, who spent his time in drawing lines on the ground when Syracuse was taken ; nor against Artaxerxes, who spent his time in making hafts for knives ; nor only against Soly- man the great Turk, who spent his time in making notches of horn for bows ; nor only against Eropas, a Macedonian king, who spent his time in; making of lanthoms ; nor only against Hyrcanus the king of Farthia * Suetonius, sub nomine — G.
206 THE PRIVY KEY OF HEAVEN. [MAT. VI. 6.