deem thofe portions of Time that our life and health lend us, for this great and one thing neceffary.

One

And now, if a man fhall take a furvey of the common course, even of the Chriftian world, we fhall find the generality of mankind the veriest children, fools, and madmen, that ever nature yielded. The very folly of children in fpending their time in rattles, and hobby-horses, is more excufable than theirs, whofe reafon and experience fhould better inftruct them. There is not any man fo fenfelefs, but he knows he muft die, and he knows not how foon he fhall hear of that fad fummons; and if he were fo brutifh as not to, think of it, or believe it, yet the weekly bills of mortality give him daily inftances of it: and yet if we do but obferve the world of men, they do for the most part wholly trifle away their time in doing that which is evil; or in doing nothing; or in doing nothing to any purpose, or becoming a reafonable nature. man trifles away his time in feasting and jollity; another in gaming or vain and unneceffary recreations in hunting, hawking, bowling, and other wafteful expences of time; another in fine clothes, powderings, and painting and dreffing; another in hunting after honours and preferments, or heaping up of wealth and riches, and lading himfelf with thick clay; another in trivial fpeculations, poffibly touching fome criticifm or grammatical nicety; and all thefe men wonderfully pride themselves as the only wife men, look big and goodly, and when they come to die, all these prove either vexations and tortures of a mifpent time; or at leaft, by the very appearance of fickness and death, are rendered poor, empty, infipid, and infignificant things, and then the minifter is fent for, and facraments, and nothing but penitence and complaints of the vanity of the world, the unhappy expences of Time, and all the wealth and honour would be prefently facrificed for the redemption of thofe mifpent hours, and days, and years that cannot be recalled, nor redeemed by the price of a world.

But

But the great mifery of mankind is this, they cannot, nor will not, in the times of health, anticipate the confideration of death and judgment to come; nor put on any apprehenfions or thoughts, that the Time will come when things will be otherwife with them than now it is or that they will be driven into another kind of eftimate of things than now they have, and this their way is their folly. Man being in honour, in health, in life, understandeth not, but becomes like the beafts that perish 1.

4. I come to the reasons why we ought thus to redeem our Time, which may be these :

1. Our Time is a Talent put into our hands by the great Lord of the whole family of heaven and earth, and fuch whereof we are to give an account when our Mafter calls; and it will be a lamentable account, when it shall confift only of fuch Items as thefe: Item, So much of it spent in plays, and taverns, and ing. Item, So much of it spent in fleeping, eating, drinking. Item, So much spent in recreations and paftimes. Item, So much spent in getting wealth and honour, &c. and there remains fo much which was spent in doing nothing.

gam

2. Our Time is an univerfal talent, that every man that lives to the age of difcretion, hath. Every man hath not a talent of learning, or of wealth, or honour, or fubtilty of wit to account for; but every man that lives to the age of difcretion, hath Time to account for.

3. Every man hath not only a talent of Time, but every man hath a talent of opportunity, to improve his talent in fome measure, put into his hand. The very works and light of nature, the very principles of natural religion, are lodged in the hearts of all men; which by the help of his natural reason, he might exercise to fome acts of fervice, duty and religion towards God. But the Christian hath much more.

4. The redemption and improvement of our Time is the next and immediate end why it is given, or lent

Psal. xlix. 12.

us,

us, and why we are placed in this life; and the wasting of our Time is a difappointment of this very end of our being; for thereby we confequently disappoint God of his glory, and ourselves of our happiness.

5. Upon the management and difpofal of our Time depends the everlasting concernment of our Souls. Ex boc momento pender Æternitas 1. If it be redeemed, improved, and employed as it ought to be, we fhall in the next moment after death, enter into an immutable, eternal, and perfect ftate of glory; if it be either finfully or idly spent, we fall into an everlasting, irrecoverable, and unchangeable state of mifery.

6. The business we have to do in this life, in order to the cleanfing of our fouls, and fitting them for glory, is a great and important business, and the Time we have to live hath two most dangerous qualities in reference to that business. 1. It is bort: our longest period is not above eighty years, and few there be that arrive to that age. 2. It is very cafual and uncertain ; there be infinite accidents, difeafes, and diftempers that cut us off fuddenly; as acute diseases, such as fcarce give us any warning; and confidering how many ftrings as it were, there are to hold us up, and how small and inconfiderable they are, and how easily broken, and the breach or disorder of any of the least of them may be an inlet to death, it is a kind of miracle that we live a month. Again, there be many dif eases that render us in a manner dead while we live, as apoplexies, palfies, phrenfies, stone, gout, which render our Time either grievous, or very unufeful to us.

7. Time once loft, is loft for ever; it is never to be recovered; all the wealth of both the Indies will not redeem nor recal the laft hour I spent ; it ceaseth for ever.

8. As our Time is fhort, fo there be many things that corrode and waste that fhort Time: fo that there remains but little that is ferviceable to our best employment. Let us take but out of our longest lives, 'On this circumstance depends the eternal salvation of souls.

the

the weaknefs and folly of childhood and youth, the impotency and morofity of our old age, the Times for eating, drinking, fleeping, though with moderation; the Times of fickness and indifpofedness of health; the Times of cares, journeys, and travel; the Times for neceffary recreations, interview of friends and relations, and a thousand fuch expences of Time, the refidue will be but a finall pittance for our bufinefs of greatest moment, the business I mean, of fitting our fouls for glory; and, if that be mispent, or idly spent, we have loft our treafure, and the very flower and jewel of our Time.

9. Let us but remember, that when we shall come to die, and our fouls fit as it were hovering upon our lips, ready to take their flight, at how great a rate we would then be willing to purchafe fome of thofe hours we once trifled away, but we cannot.

10. Remember that this is the very elixir, the very hell of hell to the damned fpirits, that they had once a Time, wherein they might, upon eafy terms, have procured everlasting reft and glory; but they foolishly and vainly mispent that Time and feafon, which is now not be recovered.

THE

THE GREAT AUDIT;

WITH THE ACCOUNT OF

THE GOOD STEWARD.

THE Great Lord of the World hath placed the children of men in this earth as his Stewards; and according to the parable in Matth. xxv. he delivers to every perfon his talents, or ftock of advantages or opportunities: to fome he commits more, to fome lefs, to all fome.

This ftock is committed to every perfon under a trust, or charge, to employ the fame in ways, and to ends, and in proportion fuitable to the talents thus committed to them, and to the measure and quality of them.

The ends of this deputing of the children of men to this kind of employment of their talents are divers : 1. That they may be kept in continual action and motion fuitable to the condition of reafonable creatures, as almost every thing elfe in the world is continued in motion fuitable to its own nature, which is the subject of the wife man's difcourfe: All things are full of labour, 2. That in thatregular motion they may attain ends of advantage to themselves; for all things are fo ordered by the most wife God, that every being hath its own proportionable perfection and happiness, infeparably annexed to that way and work which his providence hath deftined it unto. 3. That in that due and regular employment, each man might be in fome meafure ferviceable and advantageous to another. 4. That although the great Lord of this family can

Eccl. i. 8.

receive