Page:Duty of redeeming the time in evil days, illustrated and enforced.pdf/3

Rh Doer. When men's lot falls in evil days, the evil of these days calls aloud to them to redeem time, and double their diligence.

For the illustration of this doctrine, I shall shew,

I. What it is to redeem time.

II. Why the evil of the days wherein men's lot is cast should remove them to redeem time.

III. Lastly, Apply the subject in an use of exhortation and of reproof.

1. The first thing proposed is, to shew what it is to redeem time. It imports,

1st. A conviction of mispending of time, and misimproving seasons of grace. Those who will never set themselves so redeem time, who are not duly convinced of their squandering it away, selling it off, and not enriching themselves with the price. We have seen better days than now they are: glorious days of the Son of man have been in Scotland, in purity, plenty, and peace. But may not the looking back to the improvement made of them, fill us with convictions of misimprovement? And,

(1.) How many are there, who to this day are out of Christ, and have no saving interest in the covenant of grace, but are "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world?" Eph. ii. 12. If the market of free grace were closed, they poor souls, have as yet bought none of Christ's wares, for as long as they have stood in the market-place.

(2.) What have ye done for God, and what have you done for eternity, in the time which we have had? God's glory is the end of your creation; the work he has put in your hand to fill up your time with, is to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," Phil. ii 12. Ye were not set down in the world, as the leviathan in the sea, to play yourselves; but to honour God, and see to your eternal salvation. Now much of that time is over. Ye have done much to advance your worldly interest, to satisfy your lasts, to dishonour God, and to ruin your own souls; but what have ye done for God's glory and your souls salvation?

(3.) Who of us all have done for God, what we might