And (my beloved) let this be your choice, and your ambition; be cafting about in yourselves, how you may live much in a little time; how you may compaís much spiritual work and business in a few days; labour to treasure up much grace, much experience of God and his love; to bring a large revenue of glory to him, and the like. And for this end poffefs your fouls with a deep fense of the exceeding worth and preciousness of time; and accordingly fet yourselves to redeem it, looking upon the lofs thereof to be the greatest loss in the world. Eph. 5. 16,-we are commanded to redeem the time; and what is it to redeem the time, but to efteem time as precious, as a thing of incomparable worth and value; and accordingly to make the best and higheft improvement of it for the honor of God, and good of our fouls, that poffibly we can? It is to fill up our time with duty, and our duties with grace; to make use of time for those ends, før which time is given us; not to eat, and drink, and folace ourselves in the creature, but to serve and honor the Creator! to work out our falvation; to get acquaintance with God and Chrift; to make fure of heaven and a blessed eternity.

Ofirs! look upon time as precious; fo indeed it is time is the most weighty and momentous thing in the world: 'tis that which our eternal ALL depends upon: according as we do, or do not manage

or improve our time well, fo will it go with us for

ever.

'Tis a sweet meditation which I have read in a difcourfe of an holy man:-this life (faith he) of ours is most swift; and yet in it eternal life is either gotten or loft for ever. This life of ours is moft miferable; and yet in it eternal happiness is either gotten or loft for ever. No less than a whole eternity of happiness or misery, falvation or damnation, depends upon our use and management of our little time here in this world, As the tree falls. fo it lies, Ecclef. 12. 3. As it is with us when we go out of time, fo it will be with us to all eternity; and this we should be much in the thoughts of, accounting therefore the lofs of time to be the greatest lofs.

'Tis a weighty saying, which I have read in one: of the antients :—It is a great and heavy loss indeed (faith he) when we neither do good nor think good (and let me add,. nor get good) but we fuffer our hearts to wander abroad about vain and unprofitable things; and yet it is too difficult to restrain or keep them back from these things..

Truly, no lofs like the lofs of time; the lof of eftate, the lofs of trade, the lofs of this or the other

And (my beloved) let this be your choice, and your ambition; be casting about in yourselves, how you may live much in little time; how you may compaís much spiritual work and business in a few days; labour to treasure up much grace, much experience of God and his love; to bring a large revenue of glory to him, and the like. And for this end poffefs your fouls with a deep fenfe of the exceeding worth and preciousness of time; and accordingly fet yourselves to redeem it, looking upon the lofs thereof to be the greatest loss in the world. Eph. 5. 16, we are commanded to redeem the time; and what is it to redeem the time, but to efteem time as precious, as a thing of incomparable worth and value; and accordingly to make the best and higheft improvement of it for the honor of God, and good of our fouls, that poffibly we can? It is to fill up our time with duty, and our duties with grace; to make use of time for those ends, for which time is given us; not to eat, and drink, and folace ourselves in the creature, but to serve and honor the Creator! to work out our falvation; to get acquaintance with God and Chrift; to makę fure of heaven and a blessed eternity.

O firs! look upon time as precious; so indeed it is: time is the most weighty and momentous thing in the world: 'tis that which our eternal ALL depends upon: according as we do, or do not manage

or improve our time well, fo will it go with us for

ever.

'Tis a sweet meditation which I have read in a discourse of an holy man:-this life (faith he) of ours is most swift; and yet in it eternal life is either gotten or loft for ever. This life of ours is moft miferable; and yet in it eternal happiness is either gotten or loft for ever. No less than a whole eternity of happiness or misery, falvation or damnation, depends upon our use and management of our little time here in this world, As the tree falls fo it lies, Ecclef. 12. 3. As it is with us when we go out of time, fo it will be with us to all eternity; and this we should be much in the thoughts of, accounting therefore the loss of time to be the greatest lofs.

'Tis a weighty faying, which I have read in one of the antients :—It is a great and heavy loss indeed (faith he) when we neither do good nor think good (and let me add, nor get good) but we fuffer our hearts to wander abroad about vain and unprofitable things; and yet it is too difficult to restrain or keep them back from these things..

Truly, no lofs like the loss of time; the loss of eftate, the lofs of trade, the loss of this or the other

outward comfort, is nothing to the lofs of time. These being loft, may be recovered again; but time being loft, can never be recovered more. Accordingly fet yourselves to redeem it, and do it as much as poffibly you can, accounting that day loft, wherein you have not done fomething for God and your fouls. The truth is, we live no more than we are converfant in the work of God and our fouls: for as for that which we call life, that is not fpent in this work, it is not indeed to be accounted life.

Thirdly, Would you indeed fet all things right in your fouls, make all ready for a dying hour? then think much and often with yourselves, how great a change death will make with you whenever it comes.

Death is a change, and in many respects

the greatest change which the fons of men are to pafs through, All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes, Job 14. 14. Job had many changes, and great changes: changes and war were upon him, as he complained, Job 10. 16. But no change like this of death, this was the great change, and this he waited for all his days. Indeed death is a great change to every man and woman, come when or how it will; 'tis that (as you have heard) that deprives men of all their enjoyments here; which diffolves the union betwixt foul and body; which turns the body to duft and putrefaction; and (which is unspeakably more than