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goes on in the Words before my Text) The Spirit of God faith, Awake thou that fleep-Ver. 14. eft, and arise from the dead, and Chrift Shall give thee Light. And then comes my Text, See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as Fools, but as wife, redeeming the Time, because the Days are evil. Wherefore be ye not v. 17. unwife, but understanding what the Will of the Lord is. As much as to say, it is the Will of the Lord that ye should awake from the Sleep of Sin; that ye should arife from Death to Life; that ye should mortify your evil Habits and corrupt Affections, which have so long enthrall'd you; and live from henceforward a holy and a spiritual Life. This is it to which ye are called, and obliged by the Gospel. It therefore infinitely concerns you to look about you, to be very watchful of your own Actions, to be circumspect in all your Behaviour, to redeem the Time past, which you have spent in Vanity, by improving the Time present to the best Purposes, nay to catch at all Opportunities of advancing in Virtue and Goodness. (This is the Meaning of redeeming or purchasing the Time that is here mentioned). And fo much the rather, because it is an evil and dangerous World ye live in. Ye have a great many Enemies to conflict with; ye have a Torrent of bad Examples and Customs to struggle with; ye are furrounded with Temptations of all Sorts; so that unless ye VOL. V.

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be wonderfully careful of your own Conduct, and watchful over your Enemies, you are in great Danger to be run down, and lofe all the Fruits and Rewards of your taking upon yourselves the Profession of Christianity.

This is the Account which some of the Interpreters give of this Passage. Now taking St: Paul's Precept of walking circumSpectly in this Sense, it contains in it these following Duties, or will oblige us to these following Particulars.

1. First of all we must look narrowly to our Hearts, that is to say, to our Purposes and Intentions. Whoever means to walk circumspectly, must, above all Things, take care of his Designs, that they be well fixed and fettled. If a Man live at random, having no Principles to act by, no steady Aims or Purposes to pursue, he is unprovided of all Defence, and exposed to the Affaults of every Temptation that comes in his way. I cannot say that his Guard is easily broken, for he has no Guard at all, but is like a Ship without a Rudder, carried away with every Wind; like a House without Lock or Bars, a ready Prey to the first Ene:ny that shall attack him. If therefore we mean to live to any Purposes of Religion, it is absolutely necessary that we should, in the first place, look carefully to our Hearts, so as to keep them

always in a good Frame and Disposition. My My Meaning is, that we so fix our Aims and Designs, as that it shall be the conftant unchangeable Principle of our Minds, and the great Business we propose to ourselves throughout the whole Course of our Lives, to endeavour to approve ourselves to God in our whole Conversation. Whatever other Projects we may have in our Heads, yet to make it our first and chief Care to please God in every Action we do, and for no Confideration in the World to violate our Duty, or make our Confcience uneafy. This that I now say is not only an Instance of circumfpect Walking, but the very Foundation of it. If we would walk not as fools, but as wife, we must lay the first Step here, for it is the Fear of the Lord is the Begin-Prov.9.10. ning of Wisdom, as Solomon tells us.

And without doubt this is that which he adviseth in another Place, where he faith, My Son, keep thy Heart with all Diligence, Ib. 4. 23. for out of that are the Issues of Life. Thine Heart: What is that but thy Designs, thy Purposes, thy Intentions, which are the Springs and Principles from which thy Actions flow? If these be well fixed; if these be guarded and preferved pure and fincere, they will produce fuch a Conversation, as will end in eternal Life; but otherwise, the Issues of them will be Death.

2. But, Secondly, another Instance of Circumspection, is to examine carefully every

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every Action before we engage in it. The circumspect Man will not venture upon Things hand over head, but first confiders and weighs the Matter that is before him. And always his first Enquiry is, whether the Thing be lawful, whether it be confiftent with his Duty; and if it be not, he will by no means engage in it: Nay, tho' it be lawful, if it be not also expedient, (which is the next Thing he confiders) that very Confideration is enough to make him forbear the Action. It is not the Company he is engaged in, nor the Sollicitation of his Friends, nor his present Inclination or Humour, nor the Heat of a Passion, nor the serving of any Interest; I say, none of these Things will sway him; but he will examine both his own Confcience, and the Fitness or Unfitness of the Action; nay, he will take a View as far he can, of all the Consequences that will follow upon it, and what Influence it will have upon his own spiritual Good, or the Good of others, before he will venture upon it. Easy, and weak, and careless Persons are drawn to do any thing that is presented to them under fair Colours; but those who are circumspect, will examine all the Colours, by putting them into several Lights. The very Notion of Circumspection is to look round, and to view, and confider every Thing in all its several Shapes, and Respects, and Tendencies. And if we would make

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make it our Practice thus to look before us, thus to scan and examine our Actions before we engaged in them, how happy, how good, how virtuous might we be? How many Sins should we avoid, that we are now daily furprized into? How many Temptations might we overcome, that now daily lead us captive? But, alas! here is our Misery, we rush into Actions upon a present Heat and Impetus without much thinking or confidering; and hence it comes to pass that we are betray'd into a thousand Follies and Sins, which afterwards we have too just Cause to repent of. If we did but ufe to look before us, we should rarely miscarry. Ponder the Paths of thy Feet, Prov.4.26. says Solomon, and then all thy Ways shalb be ordered aright.

3. Another Instance which this Precept of circumspect Walking will oblige us to, is to be careful to put a Stop to the first Beginnings of Evils that we feel in ourselves. All our Sins do arise from some Passion or Appetite that is within us, which commonly is excited and takes fire at some external Object, and from hence grows unreasonable and extravagant; and there begins the Sin. Now it is pretty much in our Power, if we have used our Minds to think, and are not Strangers to our own Humours and Constitutions; I say, it is very much in our Power to stop the Beginnings or the first Motions of any irregular L3 Paffions