First, Get and keep communion with God. Your strength to stand, and your strength to withstand all assaults, is from your communion with God. Communion with God is that that will make you stand fast, and triumph over all enemies, difficulties, dangers, and deaths.^
While Samson kept his communion with God, no enemy could stand before him, he goes on conquering and to conquer, he lays heaps upon heaps ; but when he has fallen in his communion with God, he falls presently, easily, and sadly before his enemies.
So long as David kept up his communion with God, no enemies could stand before him ; but when he was fallen in his communion with God, he flies before the son of his bowels.
Job keeps up his communion with God, and conquers Satan upon the dunghill. Adam loses his communion with God, and falls before Satan in paradise. Communion is the result of union. Communion is a re- ciprocal exchange between Christ and a gracious soul. Communion is Jacob's ladder, where you have Christ sweetly descending down into the soul, and the soul by divine influences sweetly ascending up to
' Say, with that famous painter Zeiixis, ^ternitati pingo, I paint for eternity, I provide for eternity. Eternity is that uniim perpetuum hodie, that one perpetual to-day. [Index : Zeuxis. — G.]
* Commuuion with God will make a man as courageous and bold as a lion, yea, as a young lion that is in his hot blood, and fearless of any creature, Prov. xxviii. 1, "TiDSD. Now the proverb is, Tuticfres cervi duce leone, quam leoncs duce cervo, It is more likely that harts will get victory with a lion to their leader, than lions with a leading hart. Joshua, captain of the Lord's battles, must be of a lion-like courage, and what will make them so, but communion with God? It was the saying of the old Earl of Essex, that he was never afraid to fight but when he was conscious of some sin with which he had provoked God and lost communion with God.
Christ. Communion with God is a shield upon land, and an anchor at sea ; it is a sword to defend you, and a staff to support you ; it is balm to heal you, and a cordial to strengthen you. High communion with Christ will yield you two heavens, a heaven upon earth, and a heaven after death. He enjoys nothing that wants communion with God ; he wants nothing that enjoys communion with God ; therefore above all gettings get communion with Christ, and above all keepings keep com- munion with Christ. All other losses are not comparable to the loss of communion with Christ. He that hath lost his communion, hath lost his comfort, his strength, his all, and it will not be long before the Phi- listines take him, and put out his eyes, and bind him with fetters of brass, and make him grind in a prison, as they did Samson, Judges xvi. 20, 21.
Secondly, Make a speedy and a thorough improvement of all op- portunities of grace and m,ercy} Sleep not in harvest-time, trifle not away your market-hours, your golden seasons ; you have much work to do in a short time ; you have a God to honour, a Christ to rest on, a race to run, a crown to win, a hell to escape, a heaven to obtain.* You have weak graces to strengthen, strong corruptions to weaken ; you have many temptations to withstand, and afflictions to bear ; you have many mercies to improve, and many services to perform, &c. There- fore take hold on all opportunities and advantages, whereby you may be strengthened and bettered in your noble part. Take heed of crying Cras, eras, To-morrow, to-morrow, when God saith : ' To-day, if you will hear my voice, harden not your hearts,' Heb. iii. 7, 8.^ Manna must be gathered in the morning, and the orient pearl is generated of the morn- ing dew. It is a very sad thing for a man to begin to die before he begins to live. He that neglects a golden opportunity, doth but create to himself a great deal of misery, as Saul, and many others, have found by sad experience. He that would to the purpose do a good action, must not neglect his season.
The men of Issachar were famous in David's account for wisdom, because they acted seasonably and opportunely, 1 Chron. xii. 32. God will repute and write that man a wise man, who knows and observes his seasons of doing. Such there have been, who by giving a glass of water opportunely, have obtained a kingdom, as you may see in the story of Thaumastus and king Agrippa.
Time, saith one, were a good commodity in hell, and the traific of it most gainful, where for one day a man would give ten thousand worlds if he had them {Bernard)}
One passing through the streets of Rome, and seeing many of the women playing and delighting themselves with monkeys and baboons, and such like things, asked * whether they had no children to play and delight themselves with X So when men trifle away their precious time, and golden opportunities, playing and toying with this vanity and
' Bonus servatus facit bonum bene factum,
* Petrarch telleth of one who, being invited to dinner next flay, answered, Effo d multis annit crattinum non habtii, I have not had a morrow for this many years.
* A man, saith Luther, lives forty years before he knows himself a fool, and by that time he sees his folly his life is ended, &c.
* It was the commendations of the blessed Hooper, that he was spare of diet, sparer of words, and sparest of time.
EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 307
that, we may ask whether these men have no God, no Christ, no Scrip- ture, no promises, no blessed experiences, no hopes of heaven's glories to delight and entertain themselves with? Certainly, we should not reckon any time into the account of our lives, but that which we care- fully pass, and well spend, seeing the heathen could say, Diu fuit, n(y)i diu vixit. He was long, he did not live long {Damascene).
I have read of one Barlaam, who, being asked how old he was, an- swered, Five-and-forty years old ; to whom Josaphah replied, * Thou seemest to be seventy.' ' Truth,' saith he, ' if you reckon ever since I was born ; but I count not those years that were spent in vanity.*^
Most men spend the greatest part of their time about things that are by the by, that are of little or no value ; as Domitian, the Roman em- peror, spent his time in stabbing of flies, and Artaxerxes spent his time in making hafts for knives, and Solyman the great Turk spent his time in making of notches of horn for bows, and Archimedes spent his time in drawing lines on the ground when that famous city Syracuse was taken, and Myrmecides spent more time to make a bee than some men do to build a house.*