The saints treasury being sundry sermons preached in London /

now that you are not past this day, you are to prize your lives. And brethren know wherein consists the worth of your lives, and the continuance of them; there is a horrible ⟨p. 116⟩impudence in some men, they would fain have their lives lengthened, to have their lusts more satisfied; did God give thee thy life for this end? no, the end why thou shouldst desire to live is, that thou mayest have further time to make provision for that which is of such infinite consequence, which if it be not done, it had been better for thee to have been a Toad or Serpent, or the vilest creature that ever lived. O that we had hearts to give God the glory of our lives, and to prize our lives aright; excellent effects would proceed from it, were our hearts wrought to these things.

now that you are not past this day, you are to prize your lives. And brethren know wherein consists the worth of your lives, and the continuance of them; there is a horrible ⟨p. 116⟩impudence in some men, they would faine have their lives lengthened, to have their lusts more satisfied; did God give thee thy life for this end? no, the end why thou shouldst desire to live is, that thou mayest have further time to make provision for that which is of such infinite consequence, which if it be not done, it had been better for thee to have been a Toad or Serpent, or the vilest creature that ever lived. O that we had hearts to give God the glory of our lives, and to prize our lives aright; excellent effects would proceed from it, were our hearts wrought to these things.

But Secondly, If the only time that we have to provide for eternity be the time of this life, how then are those to be reproved that misspend and squander away this precious time of their lives about vanities, and neglect the great business that they were sent into the world for? If such great things depend upon our lives, then the loss of the time of our lives is a most dreadful loss; we all say time is precious, and it is so, and the through-understanding and applying of this point would make us see time precious indeed: If there could be an extract of the quintessence of all the pearls in the world put into one, it would not be such a precious pearl as this time of our lives, because there is that depends upon it that is infinitely more worth then ten thousand worlds; however men and women make little of their time, and play and sport it away, yet there is no moment of thy time that thou doest misspend, but for ought thou knowest it might be the very moment upon which thy eternal condition doth depend: thou goest abroad, and art merry, and jocund, and misspendest thy time, and abusest thy self; I say for ought thou knowest that instant of thy sinning might be the very moment upon which the very hinge of all thy eternal condition depends; and did we understand this doctrine aright, we should see it to be an exceeding great evil and folly, to misspend our precious time: men ordinarily live in the world as if they had nothing to do here, but only to make provision for the flesh. If a man should come to the City about a business that concerns his life, and the time he hath to do it in