_Direct._ XI. Remember also how uncertain that little time is, which you must have. As you know it will be short, so you know not how short. You never yet saw the day or hour, in which you were sure to see another. And is it a thing becoming the reason of a man, to slug or cast away that day or hour, which for aught he knows may be his last? You think that though you are not certain, yet you are likely to have more: but nothing that is hazardous should be admitted in a business of such moment. Yea, when the longest life is short; and when so frail a body, liable to so many hundred maladies and casualties, and so sinful a soul, do make it probable, as well as possible, that the thread of thy life should be cut off ere long, even much before thy natural period; when so many score at younger years do come to the grave, for one that arriveth at the ripeness of old age; is not then the uncertainty of thy time a great aggravation of the sinfulness of thy not redeeming it? If you were sure you had but one year to live, it would perhaps make you so wise, as to see that you had no time to spare. And yet do you waste it, when you know not that you shall live another day? Many a one is this week trifling away their time, who will be dead the next week; who yet would have spent it better if they had thought but to have died the next year. O man! what if death come before thou hast made thy necessary preparation? Where art thou then? When time is uncertain as well as short, hast thou not work enough of weight to spend it on? If Christ had set thee to attend and follow him in greatest holiness a thousand years, shouldst thou not have gladly done it? And yet canst thou not hold out for so short a life? Canst thou not watch with him one hour? He himself was provoked by the nearness of his death, to a speedy despatch of the works of his life. And should not we? Matt. xxvi. 18, He sendeth to prepare his last communion-feast with his disciples, thus: "My time is at hand: I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples." And Luke xxii. 15, "With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." So should you rather say, My time is short; my death is at hand; and therefore it concerneth me to live in the knowledge and communion of God, before I go hence into his presence; especially when, as Eccles. ix. 12, "Man knoweth not his time." Many thousands would have done better in their preparations, if they had known the period of their time. Matt. xxiv. 43, "But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up: therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." Mark xiii. 33, "Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is."
_Direct._ XII. Never forget what attendance thou hast whilst thou art idling or sinning away thy time; how the patience and mercy of God are staying for thee; and how sun and moon and all the creatures are all the while attending on thee. And must God stand by, while thou art yet a little longer abusing and offending him? Must God stay till thy cards, and dice, and pride, and worldly, unnecessary cares will dismiss thee, and spare thee for his service? Must he wait on the devil, the world, and the flesh, to take their leavings, and stay till they have done with thee? Canst thou marvel if he make thee pay for this? if he turn away, and leave thee to spend thy time in as much vanity and idleness as thou desirest? Must God and all his creatures wait on a careless sinner, while he is at his fleshly pleasures? Must life and time be continued to him, while he is doing nothing that is worthy of his life and time? "The long-suffering of God did wait on the disobedient in the days of Noah," 1 Pet. iii. 20; but how dear did they pay for the contempt of this forbearance!