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backbiting thofe that are abfent, (for the great defign of molt people in vifits, is not to better one another, but to fpy and make faults, and not to mend them; to get time off their hands, to thew their fine cloaths, and to recommend themfelves to the mutual contempt of one another, by a plentiful impertinence); when we part with it by wholefale in fleep and dreffing, and can spend whole mornings between. the comb and the glass, and the afternoon at plays, and whole nights in gaming, or in riot, and lewdnefs and intemperance; in all which people commonly waste their money and their time together!

Nay, how do even the best of us mifplace this precious treasure; and though we do not employ it to wicked purposes, and in works of iniquity, yet we do not apply it to the best and nobleft ufe, to the glory of God, and the good and falvation of men! By thus laying out this treasure, we might lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, and help others on in the way

thither.

Thus our bleffed Saviour employed his precious time in going about doing good, in all kinds, and upon all occafions; healing the bodies, and enlightening the minds, and faving the fouls of men. This was his bufinefs, and this was his delight; it was his meat and drink, and his very life; he spent himself in it, and facrificed his eafe, and his fafety, and his life, to those great ends for which he came into the world; he confidered the goodnels and the greatnefs of his work, and the little time he had to do it in, which made him inceffantly induftrious in it, and to run the race which was fet before him with great speed, and to work while it was day, because he knew the night would come, when no man can work. And this brings me to the

II. Second thing I obferved from the text, namely, That there is a certain and limited time for every man to do this work in: While it is day. I must work the works of him that fent me, while it is day. And this day comprehends all the opportunities of our life, which will foon be over, and therefore had need to be well ipent. A great part of our life is past before

the

the feafon of working begins. It is a great while before the ufe of our reafon begins, and we come to have our fenfes exercifed to difcern between good and evil; before our understandings are ripe for the ferious confideration of God and religion, and for the due care of our fouls, and of the eternal concernment of another world; fo that this firft part of our life is in a great measure useless and unprofitable to us, in regard to our great defign. For infancy and childhood are but the dawnings of this day, and no fit time to work in and youth, which is as the morning of this day, though it is the flower of our time, and the moft proper feafon of all other, for the remembrance of God, and the impreffions of religion; yet it is ufually poffeffed by vanity and vice: The common custom and practice of the world, hath devoted this best part of our age to the worst employments, to the fervice of fin, and of our lufts. How very few are there that lay hold of this opportunity, and employ it to the best purposes? And yet the following courfe of our lives doth in a great measure depend upon it : for moft perfons do continue and hold on in the way in which they fet out at first, whether it be good or bad. And those who neglect to improve this first opportunity of their lives, do feldom recover themselves afterwards. God's grace may feize upon men in any part of their lives; but according to the most ordinary methods of it, the foundations and principles of religion and virtue are most commonly laid in a pious and virtuous education. This is the great opportunity of our lives, which fettleth and fixeth most men, either in a good or bad courfe, and the fortune of their whole lives does ufually follow it, and depend upon it.

It is true indeed our day continues many times a great while longer, and we are to work while it continues; and it is never too late to begin to do well, and to enter upon a good courfe. But there is no fuch proper and advantageous feafon for the beginning of this work, as in our youth and tender years. This is the accepted time, this is the day of falvation. God's grace is then moft forward and ready to

affist us; and we are then leaft of all indifpofed for the receiving of the impreffions of it; and the impreffions of it do then go deepeft into our minds, and are most lasting and durable. But if we neglect this opportunity, we provoke God by degrees to withdraw his grace, and to take away his Holy Spirit from us, and by degrees we fettle in vicious habits, and are every day more and more hardened through the deceitfulness of fin. It is never too late to work while the day lafts; but the fooner we begin this work, and fet about it in good earnest, the eafier we fhall find it; if we defer it late, every ftep will be up the hill, and against the grain.

III. After this feafon is expired, there will be no further opportunity of working. When this day is once at an end, then cometh the night when no man can work. The night is a time unfit for work, when we can hardly do any thing, if we had never fo great a mind to it, and there is fuch a night coming upon every one of us, and wo be to us if we have our work to do when the night overtakes us.

There is ufually an evening before this night, when it will be very difficult for us, and next to impoffible, to do this work; and this is the time of fickness and old age, in which men are commonly unfit for any work; but most of all, that which requires the whole force and vigour of our minds, the business of religion. If we attempt this work then, we fhall go very heartlessly about it, and do it very imperfectly, and be forced to flubber it over, and to huddle it up in great hafte and confufion, and fo as we can hardly hope that God will accept it. For how unfit are men to do any thing, when they are full of the fenfe of their own infirmities, and life itself is become fo great a burden to them, that they are hardly able to stand under it! How incapable fhall we then be of doing the greatest and most momentous work of our lives, when our faculties are almoft quite fpent and worn out, and all the powers of life are decayed in us; when our understandings are dark and dull, our memories frail and treacherous, and our hearts hard and deceitful above all things! When fickness and VOL. V.

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old age overtake us, we fhall then find to our for. row, that fufficient for that day is the evil thereof; we fhall have need then of nothing else to do, but to bear our infirmities with patience and decency; and it is well if we can rally together of the broken forces of our reafon, fo much as may be a fufficient guard to us against peevifhnefs and difcontent; we had need then have nothing else to do, but to be old and weak, to be fick and die.

Befides, how can we expect that God fhould accept of any work that we do at fuch a time? With what face can we put off God with the dregs of our life? Or how can we hope that he will be pleased with the service of thofe years, which we ourselves take no pleasure in? If we offer the lame in facrifice, is it not evil? and if we offer the blind, is it not evil? Offer it now to thy governor, and fee if he will be pleafed with thee,

And fickness is commonly as bad a time as old age, and ufually incumbered with greater difficulties, and clogged with more indifpofitions. If a violent diftemper feize upon us, it many times takes away the ufe of our reafon, and deprives us of all opportunity of confideration; it makes us both infenfible of the danger of our condition, and incapable of ufing the means to avoid it. And if we have neglected religion before, and have put off the great work of our life to the end of it, our opportunity is irrecoverably loft; for there is nothing to be done in religion, when our reafon is once departed from us; the night is then come indeed, and darkness hath overtaken us; and though we be ftill alive, yet are we as unfit for any work, as if we were naturally dead.

And this is no fuch rare and extraordinary case; for it happens to many; and every man that wilful-ly defers the work of religion and repentance to a dying hour, hath reason to fear, that he fhall be thus furprised in his fin and fecurity, and by the juft judgement of God, deprived of all the opportunity of life and falvation, while he is yet in the land of the living.

But

But if God be more merciful unto us, and vifit us with fuch a fickness as leaves us the use of our underftandings, yet all that we do in religion at fuch a time, proceeds from fo violent a caufe, from the prefent terror of death, and the dreadful apprehenfion of that eternal mifery which is juft ready to fwallow us up, that it is one of the hardest things in the world, not only for others, but even for ourfelves, to know whether our resolutions, and this fudden and hafty fit of repentance, be fincere or not: for it is natural, and almost unavoidable, for a man to repent, and be forry for what he hath done, when he is going to execution. But the great question is, What this man would do, if his life were fpared? whether his repentance would hold good, and he would become a new man, and change his former course of life, or relapfc into it again? And it is by no means certain, that he would not be as bad as he was before; because we see many, who, when they lie upon a fickbed, give all imaginable teftimony of a deep forrow, and a hearty repentance for their fins, who yet upon their recovery, return to their former fins, with a greater appetite, and make themselves ten times more the children of wrath than they were before. So that all the work that we can do at fuch a time, ought not to be much reckoned upon, and can give us little or no comfort; because it is fo infinitely uncertain whether it be real and fincere, and whether the effect of fo violent a caufe would laft and continue, if the cause were removed. Therefore we should work while it is day; for whatever we do in this evening of our lives, will be done with very great difficulty, and with very doubtful fuccefs.

But befides this evening, there is a night coming, when no man can work. Death will feize upon us, and then our state will be irrecoverably concluded. After that it will be impoffible for us to do any thing towards our own falvation, or to have any thing done for us by others. The prayers of the living will not avail the dead: As the tree falls, fo it lies; there is no wisdom, nor counsel, nor device in the grave, whither we are going; therefore, according to the

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