Part 425

_Direct._ I. Still keep upon thy heart, by faith and consideration, the lively sense of the greatness and absolute necessity of that work, which must command thy time; remembering who setteth thee on work, and on what a work he sets thee, and on what terms, and what will be the end. It is God that calleth thee to labour; and wilt thou stand still or be doing other things, when God expecteth duty from thee? Moses must go to Pharaoh when God bids him go; Jonah must go to Nineveh when God bids him go; yea, Abraham must go to sacrifice his son when God bids him go. And may you go about your fleshly pleasures, when God commandeth you to his service? He hath appointed you a work that is worth your time and all your labour; to know him, and serve him, and obey him, and to seek everlasting life! How diligently should so excellent a work be done! and so blessed, and glorious a Master be served! especially considering the unutterable importance of our diligence! we are in the race appointed us by our Maker, and are to run for an immortal crown. It is heaven that must be now won or lost: and have we time to spare in such a race? We are fighting against the enemies of our salvation; the question is now to be resolved, whether the flesh, the world, and the devil, or we, shall win the day, and have the victory. And heaven or hell must be the issue of our warfare: and have we time to spare in the midst of such a fight? when our very loss of time is no small part of the enemy's conquest? Our most wise, omnipotent Creator hath been pleased to make this present life to be the trying preparation for another, resolving that it shall go with us all for ever, according to our preparations here: and can we play and loiter away our time, that have such a work as this to do? O miserable, senseless souls! do you believe indeed the life everlasting, and that all your lives are given you now, to resolve the question whether you must be in heaven or hell for ever? Do you believe this? Again I ask you, do you believe this? I beseech you, ask your consciences over and over, whether you do indeed believe it? Can you believe it, and yet have time to spare? What! find time to play away, and game away, and idle and prate away, and yet believe that this very time is given you to prepare for life eternal? and that salvation or damnation lieth on the race which now, even now, you have to run? Is not such a man a monster of stupidity? If you were asleep, or mad, it were the more excusable to be so senseless: but to do thus awake, and in your wits! Oh where are the brains of those men, and of what metal are their hardened hearts made, that can idle and play away that time, that little time, that only time, which is given them for the everlasting saving of their souls! Verily, sirs, if sin had not turned the ungodly part of the world into a bedlam, where it is no wonder to see a man out of his wits, people would run out with wonder into the streets to see such a monster as this, as they do to see mad-men in the country where they are rare; and they would call to one another, Come and see a man, that can trifle and sport away his time, as he is going to eternity, and is ready to enter into another world! Come and see a man that hath but a few days to win or lose his soul for ever in, and is playing it away at cards or dice, or wasting it in doing nothing! Come and see a man that hath hours to spare, and cast away upon trifles, with heaven and hell before his eyes. For thy soul's sake, consider and tell thyself, if thy estate in the world did lie upon the spending of this day or week, or if thy life lay on it, so that thou must live or die, or be poor or rich, sick or well, as thou spendest it, wouldst thou then waste it in dressings, or compliment, or play? and wouldst thou find any to spare upon impertinent triflings? Or rather wouldst thou not be up betimes, and about thy business, and turn by thy games, and thy diverting company, and disappoint thy idle visitors, and let them find that thou art not to be spoken with, nor at leisure to do nothing, but wilt rather seem uncivil and morose, than be undone! And wouldst thou do thus for a transitory prosperity or life, and doth not life eternal require much more? Will thy weighty business in the world resolve thee, to put by thy friends, thy play-fellows and sports, and to shake off thy idleness? and should not the business of thy salvation do it? I would desire no more to confute the distracted time-wasters, when they are disputing for their idle sports and vanities, and asking, what harm is in cards, and dice, and stage-plays, or tedious feasts or complimenting, adorning idleness, than if I could help them to one sight of heaven and hell, and make them well know what greater business they have to do, which is staying for them while they sleep or play. If I were just now in disputing the case with an idle lady, or a sensual belly-slave or gamester, and he were asking me scornfully, what hurt is in all this? if one did but knock at his door and tell him, the king is at the door and calls for you, it would make him to cast away his game and his dispute: or if the house were on fire, or a child fallen into the fire or water, or thieves breaking in upon them, it would make the ladies cast by the other lace or riband? Or if there were but a good bargain or a lordship to be got, they could be up and going, though sports and game and gaudery were cast off: and yet the foresight of heaven and hell, though one of them is even at the door, will not do as much with them; because heaven is as nothing to an unbeliever, or an inconsiderate, senseless wretch; and as it is nothing to them when it should move them, it shall be nothing to them when they would enjoy it. Say not, recreation must be used in its season: I know that necessary whetting is no letting: but God and thy own conscience shall tell thee shortly, whether thy recreations, feastings, long dressings, and idleness, were a necessary whetting or refreshment of thy body, to fit it for that work which thou wast born and livest for; or whether they were the pastimes of a voluptuous, fleshly brute, that lived in these pleasures for the love of pleasure. Verily, if I looked but on this one unreasonable sin of time-wasting, it would help me to understand the meaning of Luke xv. 17, Εις ἑαυτον ελθων, that the prodigal is said to come to himself; and that conversion is the bringing a man to his wits.