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of sickness is a warning-piece that life is coming to its period: every death amongst our friends and acquaintance, is another tender and painful admonition that our death also is at hand: The end of every week and every dawning Sabbath is another warning; every sermon we hear of the 'shortness of time,' and the uncertainty of life,' is a fresh intimation that the great angel will shortly pronounce a period upon all our time. How inexcusable shall we be if we turn the deaf ear to all these warnings? St. Peter advises us to "count the long-suffering of the Lord for salvation." 2 Pet. iii. 15. and to secure our eternal safety, and our escape from hell, during the season of his lengthened grace.

Alas! How long has Jesus, and his mercy, and his gospel, waited on you, before you began to think of the things of your everlasting peace? And if you are now solemnly awakened, yet how long has he waited on you with fresh admonitions, and with special providences, with mercies and judgments, with promises and invitations of grace, with threatenings and words of terror, and with the whispers and advices of his own Spirit, since you began to see your danger? And after all, have you yet sincerely repented of sin? Have you yet received the offered grace? Have you given up yourselves to the Lord and laid hold of his salvation? 2 Cor. vi. 2. "This is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation; Today if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts." Heb. iii. 7, 8, &c. It is never said through all the Bible, that to-morrow is the day of grace;' or 'to

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morrow is the time of acceptance:' It is the present hour only that is offered. Every day and every hour is a mercy of unknown importance to sinful men: It is a mercy, O sinners, that you awaked not this morning in hell, and that you were not fixed without remedy beyond the reach of hope and mercy.

Reflect. V. Learn from this discourse what a very useful practice it would be to set ourselves often before hand as at the end of time,' to imagine ourselves just under the sound of the voice of this mighty angel, or at the tribunal of Christ, and to call our souls to a solemn account in what manner we have past away all our leisure time hitherto: I mean, all that time which hath not been laid out in the necessities of the natural life for its support and its needful refreshment, or in the due and proper employments of the civil life: Both these are allowed and required by the God of nature and the God of providence who governs the world: But what hast thou done O man; O woman, what hast thou done with all the hours of leisure which might have been laid out on far better employments, and to far nobler purposes? Give me leave to enter into particulars a little, for generals do but seldom convince the mind, or awaken the conscience, or affect the heart.

1. Have you not slumbered or squandered' away too much time without any useful purpose or design' at all? How many are there, that when they have morning hours on their hands, can pass them off on their beds, and lose and forget time in a little more sleep and a little more slumber;' a few imper

tinencies with breakfast and dressing wear out the morning without God. And how many afternoon and evening hours are worn away in such sauntering idleness as I have described, that when the night comes they cannot review one half hour's useful work, from the dawn of morning to the hour of rest. Time is gone and vanished, and as they knew not what to do with it while it was present, so now it is past, they know not what they have done with it; They keep no account of it, and are never prepared to come to a reckoning: But will the great Judge of all take this for answer to such a solemn inquiry?

2. Have you never laid out much more time than was needful in 'recreations and pleasures of sense?' Recreations are not unlawful, so far as they are necessary and proper to relieve the fatigue of the spirits, when they are tired with business or labour, and to prepare for new labours and new businesses; but have we not followed sports without measure and without due limitation? Hath not some of that very time been spent in them which should have been laid out in preparing for death and eternity, and in seeking things of far higher importance?

3. Have you not wasted too much time in your frequent clubs, and what you call good company, and in 'places of public resort.' Hath not the tavern, or the coffee-house, or the ale-house, seen and known you from hour to hour for a whole evening, and that sometimes before the trade or labours of the day should have been ended? And when your Bible and your closet, or the devotion of your family, have

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sometimes called upon your conscience, have you not turned the deaf ear to them all?

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4. Have not useless and impertinent visits' been made to no good purpose, or been prolonged beyond all necessity or improvement? When your conversation runs low even to the dregs, and both you and your friends have been at a loss what to say next, and knew not how to fill up the time, yet the visit must go on, and time must be wasted. Sometimes the wind and the weather, and twenty insignificancies, or (what is much worse) scandal of persons or families, have come in to your relief, that there might not be too long a silence; but not one word of God or goodness could find room to enter in and relieve the dull hour. Is none of this time ever to be accounted for? And will it sound well in the ears of of the great Judge, We ran to these sorry topics, these slanderous and backbiting stories, because we could not tell what to talk of, and we knew not how to spend our time.'

5. Have you not been guilty of frequent and even perpetual delays or neglects of your proper necessary business in the civil life, or in the solemn duties of religion, by busying yourselves in some other needless thing under this pretence, it is time enough yet?

Have you learnt that important and eternal rule of prudence, never delay till to-morrow what may be done to-day; never put off till the next hour what may be done in this?? Have you not often experienced your own disappointment and folly by these delays? And yet have you ever so repented as to

learn to mend them? Solomon tells us, Eccles. iii. 1. "There is a time for every purpose, and every work, under the sun:" A proper and agreeable time for every lawful work of nature and life; and it is the business and care of a wise man to 'do proper work in proper time;' but when we have let slip the proper season, how often have we been utterly disappointed? Have we not sustained great inconveniencies? And sometimes it hath so happened that we could never do that work or business at all, because another proper season for it hath never offered? Time hath been no more. Felix put off his discourse with Paul about the "faith of Christ, and righteousness, and judgment to come, to a more convenient time,” which probably never came, Acts xxiv. 25. And the word of God teaches us, that if we neglect our salvation in the present day of grace, the angel in my text is ready to swear, that Time shall be no longer.'

Here permit me to put in a short word to those who have lost much time already.

O my friends, begin now to do what in you lies to regain it, by double diligence in the matters of your salvation, lest the voice of the arch-angel' should finish your time of trial, and call you to judgment before you are prepared?

What time lies before you for this double improvement God only knows: The remnant of the measure of your days are with him, and every evening the number is diminished: Let not the rising sun upbraid you with continued negligence. Remem

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