gument for a future ftate. If a just God preside over the affairs of this world, we cannot but fuppofe he muft either here or hereafter bring things to a balance.

Lastly, we ought to lay it down as a certain rule, from which we ought never to depart, that nothing can be our real intereft, but what is also our duty; and that our duty always is our real intereft. We fhould therefore fix in our minds a firm perfuafiona fteady refolution, never to yield to any folicitations of pleasure, or interest, that may draw us afide from our duty; nor be affrighted from it by any difficulties with which the world may threaten us. Our duty fhould always be the great pole-ftar to direct us: we fhould have it always in our eye: the current ' may drive us, or the ftorm may force us from our courfe; but ftill we fhould endeavour to recover it, and never be at reft till it appear again in fight. The religious man may furely turn every event to his fpiritual advantage. As all nature is at God's difpofal, we may reft fatisfied that He, who suffereth not a fparrow to fall to the ground without his knowledge, will not fuffer his faithful fervants to be afflicted beyond what is proper for them.-Let us then to the last

hold faft our integrity, and not be weary of well-doing; affuring ourselves, that nothing is more true than the doctrine of the text;-that what a man foweth, that he shall alfo reap: for he that foweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that foweth to the fpirit, fhall of the fpirit reap life everlasting.

SERMON XIII,

EPH. V. 16.

REDEEMING THE TIME, BECAUSE THE DAYS ARE EVIL.

HIS paffage occurs twice in fcripture.

In

the epiftle to the Coloffians, it appears rather as a prudential caution. It is introduced with thefe words: Walking with wisdom towards them that are without t-But in the paffage before us, I

The fame word, sayopata, is made ufe of in purchafing a commodity, and in redeeming the world by Chrift. This laxness, I fhould think, might bring fome little difficulty on the doctrine of the redemption, if it were not fecured by various other modes of expreffing the fame idea; fuch as, Ephef. i. 14-1 Theff. v. 10.-1 Tim. i. 15.—1 Tim. ii. 6. -2 Tim. ii. 10.-Titus, ii. 14.-Heb. i. 3.-xi. 14, 17.Heb. iv. 16.-v. 9-vii. 25 & 27.-Heb. ix. 12, 28, &c. + Coloff. iv. 5.

1

fee

fee nothing that has any reference to worldly matters; but much that has reference to spiritual. At least, the words feem capable of a much higher, a more general, and a more inftructive interpretation, than a prudential one. I mean, therefore, to confider them in this enlarged fense; and to take occafion from them to prefs upon you fir, the neceffity of a religious improvement of your time; and, fecondly, to explain the reafon given for it-because the days are evil.

I. To redeem a thing, is to take it out of a state of bondage and reftraint, and to place it again in its proper fituation; generally paying fome confideration as the price of redemption. Thus we redeem a man from prifon by paying his debts; and thus our bleffed Saviour redeemed us by dying for our fins.

To redeem our time, therefore, is to restore it from fome abuse into its proper channel; paying, as the price of its redemption, our forrow for what is paft. Or, in other words, to redeem our time confifts in correcting the abufes of it; and in spending it, for the future, in a rational and religious manner.

That we may be enabled to spend the future in a proper manner, it behoves us to examine, in what way we have spent the paft. Year after year paffes over us. Many of us have feen a great number of thefe portions of time fleet away, which muft, on the whole, either have been redeemed, or muft now be a heavy burden upon us.

That we may the better afcertain the use we have made of our paft time, once in our own power, let us confider it in three points of light: as having been well employed-or ill employedor mifpent, in a fort of trifling way, between both.

That part of our time which hath been well employed-which, amidst the business of this world, and an honeft attention to our calling, hath been dedicated to God by piety and devotion—by acts of kindness to man-by conquering our bad habits, and forming in ourselves good difpofitions-by inftructing our families, and breeding them up in the fear of God; ftands in little need, we hope, of being redeemed. We prefume there is nothing here, but fuch infirmities as will be pardoned through the merits of Chrift.

I fhall