But add to this the shortness and uncertainty of human life. Who that considers this, would delay to deprecate God's wrath, and to avail himself of the present hour to secure the proffered mercy ? O beg of God to impress your minds with a sense of the shortness of time, and to " teach you so to number your days, that you may without delay apply your hearts unto wis- dom." Obvious as this lesson is, you can never learn it, unless you are taught of God. You will be ever calculating upon months and years to come, when " you know not what a single day may bring forth." You may even, like the Rich Fool, be promising yourselves " years of ease and pleasure," when God may have said, " This night shall thy soul be required of thee k." To turn unto God instantly is true wisdom : to put it
off to a more convenient season is folly and madness
" To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts '."]
But, to this work you must " apply with your heart," your whole heart —
[It is not by seeking merely, but by "striving, to enter in at the strait gate," that you are to obtain acceptance with your God m. You must " apply your heart " unto wisdom : and " whatsoever your hand findeth to do, you must do it with all your might n " -]
; Ps. cxi. 10. k Luke xii. 19, 20. ] Ps. cxix. 60. Heb. iii. 7, 8. m Luke xiii. 24. » Eccl. ix. 10.
120 Address —