YeR. 16.] SERMONS UPON EPHESIANS V. 375
3. This is wisdom. Some are wise in time, others too late ; as the foolish virgins ; they saw a necessity of getting oil into their vessels, but it was too late, Mat. xxv. 10. But the godly make much of time before it is lost. Alas ! we have no security of the next day but our own word ; and he hath nothing to seciu'e him that hath only his own overweening presumptions to secure him : ' Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee,' Luke xii. 20. The greatest folly is seen in the loss of time and season. It is ill being taken unprovided.
4. The foresight and provision of the creatures may shame us. God will not only teach careless men by his prophets and messengers, but by his creatures. There is a great deal of morality lieth hid in the bosom of nature if we had the skill to find it out. In this business of redeeming the time we are sent to the pismire : Prov. vi. 6-8, ' Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, and be wise : which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.' This little creature is as it were put into the pulpit to preach to man ; as Christ elsewhere sendeth us to the fowls and lilies to learn how to trust God for food and clothing. The creatures are as it were in a glass, wherein we may not only see God's glory, but our own folly and sin. Some would have thought that there had been no use of the ant but to devour grain, and that we might have been better without such a creature than with it. If it serves for no other use, this is enough, that it is an emblem of dili- gence, sagacity, and industry. This wisdom is merely natural instinct, which should shame us men who are endowed with reason on purpose to provide for the time to come, especially for eternity. Solomon heigh teneth this sagacity and industry, because the ant 'hath no guide, overseer, or ruler,' to show her her work, or to require it of her, or to punish her for idleness ; no epjoSicoKriri. There is a God to look after us, and call us to an account, and to punish us in case of negli- gence ; and yet in summer we do not provide for winter, and are not wise to redeem the time. So elsewhere God shameth us by the fowls of heaven : Jer. viii. 7, ' Yea, the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming ; but my people know not the judg- ment of the Lord.' They duly observe the seasons of the year for coming and going, but man doth not observe the seasons of grace or the time of wrath. In things that do more nearly concern us, we come short of the unreasonable creatures.
5. Most of the calamities of the world come for not observing and improving the season : Eccles. viii. 6, ' To every purpose there is time and judgment ; therefore the misery of man is great upon him ;' that is, everything hath its proper season, upon which the happy success of their undertakings doth depend, and if this be let slip, the misery of man is great upon him. The Lord vouchsafeth his blessing to ac- tions done in his time and after his manner ; therefore we need to take the season.
Use 1. Is reproof of several sorts of men.
1. Of them that wilfully spend their time vainly, either in doing nothing, or doing what they should not, or in doing evil : autjiihil, aut aliud, aut male agendo.
376 SERMONS UPON EPHESIANS V. [SeK. XX.
[1.] In doing nothing. Time and life was given us for some end and purpose; every man hath his work wherein to glorify God. Men are not made to fill up the number of things in the world, as the stones ; nor to grow bulky, and increase in stature, as plants and trees ; nor to taste bodily pleasures without remorse, as the beasts. We have higher faculties of reason and conscience to foresee the end and choose the means, and diligently by those means to pursue after the end. Our end is to glorify God and enjoy him ; the means are the duties of our general and particular callings, and we must be diligent in both. An idle man is a burden to himself, a prey to Satan, and a grief to the Spirit of God. A burden to himself, for he knoweth not what to do with time; in the morning he saith. Would God it were evening. A prey to Satan ; if the devil findeth them at leisure, he will be sure to employ them : standing pools are apt to putrefy ; birds are not taken in their flight, but when they pitch and rest. They are a grief to the Spirit of God , idle men quench the vigour of nature, and therefore are incapable of the quickenings of grace. In short, the world was never made to be a hive for drones ; every one hath his employment for public good. To spend the whole life in eating, drinking, and sporting is beastly or brutish : ' Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness,' were the sins of Sodom, Ezek. xvi. 49. Every member of the body hath its function and use, whereby it becometh serviceable to the whole. All have not the same office ; that would make a confusion ; but all have their use, and are, according to their gifts and talents, diligently to employ themselves. They are unprofitable burdens of the earth that live idle and to no use, as if their souls were only given them as salt to keep their bodies from stinking.