We can never make any true judgment of time as it relates to us, without considering the true state of our _duration_. If we are _temporary_ beings, then a little time may justly be called a great deal in relation to us; but if we are _eternal_ beings, then the difference of a few years is as nothing.
17. If we were to suppose _three_ different _sorts_ of rational beings, all of _different_, but _fixed_ duration; one sort that lived _certainly_ only a _month_, the other a _year_, and the third an _hundred years_.
If these beings were to meet together, and talk about time, they must talk in a very different language. _Half_ an _hour_ to those who were to live but a _month_, must be a very different thing, to what it is to those, who are to live an _hundred years_.
As therefore time is thus a different thing, with regard to the _state_ of those who enjoy it; so if we would know what time is with regard to ourselves, we must consider our state.
Now since our eternal state, is as certainly ours, as our present state; since we are as certainly to live for ever, as we are now to live at all; it is plain, that we cannot judge of the value of any particular time, as to us, but by comparing it to that eternal duration for which we are created.
If you would know what _five years_ signify to a being that was to live an _hundred_, you must compare _five_ to a _hundred_, and see what proportion it bears to it, and then you would judge right.
*So if you would know, what _twenty_ years signify to a son of _Adam_, you must compare it, not to a _million_ of ages, but to an _eternal duration_, to which no number of millions bears any proportion; and then you will judge right, by finding it _nothing_.
18. Consider therefore this; how would you condemn the folly of a man, that should lose his share of future glory, for the sake of being _rich_, or _great_, or _praised_, or delighted in _any enjoyment_, only _one poor_ day before he was to die!
But if the time will come, when a number of years will seem less to every one than a day does now; what a condemnation must it then be, if eternal happiness should be lost, for something less than the enjoyment of a day!
Why does a day seem a trifle to us now? It is because we have years to set against it. It is the duration of years that makes it seem as nothing.
*What a _trifle_ therefore must the years of a _man_’s _age_ appear, when they are forced to be set against _eternity_, when there shall be nothing but eternity to compare them with!
*And this will be the case of every man, as soon as he is out of the body; he will be forced to forget the distinction of days and years, and to measure time, not by the course of the sun, but by setting it against eternity.
As the _fixed stars_, by reason of our being placed at such distance from them, appear but as so many _points_; so when we, placed in eternity, shall look back upon _all time_, it will appear but as a _moment_.
*Then, a _luxury_, an _indulgence_, a _prosperity_, a _greatness_ of _fifty_ years, will seem to every one that looks back upon it, as the same _poor short_ enjoyment, as if he had been snatched away in his _first sin_.
These few reflections upon _time_, are only to shew how poorly they think, how miserably they judge, who are less careful of an eternal state, because they _may_ be at some _years_ distance from it, than they would be, if they knew they were within a few _weeks of it_.