A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

1. How little have we wrought in this day of grace? What a pitiful account (and yet an account must be given) of this Day can we give unto God, of thousands of Sabbaths, and repetitions of ordinances, and opportunities of life, that we have enjoyed? You have been perhaps long in the world and under the means of grace; but can you say, you have lived long? 'Tis one thing for passengers in a ship to be a great while tossed in the Sea, and another thing for them to sail a great way. You have been long in the world tossed up and down with many temptations, and impetuous corruptions, and violent affections; but which of you have sailed much, or gone forward in your course to Heaven with any considerable progress? Little is to be seen in the copies of your lives, besides blots and empty spaces. Much paper hath been spent with wide lines. Had you not need now towards the end of the side to write the closer, to redeem the time, as the Apostle expresseth it? Eph. 5.16. We should redeem our time out of the hands of those that have taken it captive, out of the clutches of those vain employments, that have so often taken it captive. Now in all redemptions there is the laying down a price for the party that is redeemed: But what is that price you are to lay down for your time, when it is to be redeemed? I will tell you, Id quod perdis pretium est, (saith Augustin) That which you lose in your worldly employments, in your idle recreations, in your vain visits, in your exorbitant eatings and drinkings, that time that you take from these to give to God and your Souls, that is the price that you lay down for the redeeming of seasons for your Souls. It is miserable for our work to be undone for want of time when we are dying, when it is undone for the loss of time while we are living.

1. How little have we wrought in this day of grace? What a pitiful account (and yet an account must be given) of this Day can we give unto God, of thousands of Sabbaths, and repetitions of ordinances, and opportunities of life, that we have enjoyed? You have been perhaps long in the world and under the means of grace; but can you say, you have lived long? 'Tis one thing for passengers in a ship to be a great while tost in the Sea, and another thing for them to sail a great way. You have been long in the world tossed up and down with many temptations, and impetuous corruptions, and violent affections; but which of you have sailed much, or gone forward in your course to Heaven with any considerable progress? Little is to be seen in the copies of your lives, besides blots and empty spaces. Much paper hath been spent with wide lines. Had you not need now towards the end of the side to write the closer, to redeem the time, as the Apostle expresseth it?