A discourse concerning the Redeemer's dominion over the invisible world, and the entrance thereinto

But if any premonitory decays make them doubt the perpetuity of their own abode here, they some what ease their minds by the pleasure they take in thinking, when they have filled their own Bellies, Psal. 17.14. What they shall leave of their substance to their Babes, and to them that shall come after. And their inward thought is, that their Houses shall continue for ever, and their Dwelling places to all Generations; and they call their Lands after their own Names, and their Posterity approve their sayings, think and act as wisely as they, Psal 49.11, 12. — Thus they take upon them, and reckon they for their time, and theirs after them shall still dwell in their own A wise thought! ⟨p. 85⟩They are the Owners when another keeps the Keys.

Several other things of like import, I shall more lightly touch, that may be collected from what hath been already more largely said, and leave to be further enlarged upon, in your own thoughts, and shall dilate more upon some other, as they are either more material, or less thought on by the most.

3. Be not prodigal of your time on Earth, which is so little in your Power. Because you are not to expect much, make the best use you can of your little. 'Tis so precious a thing that it is to be redeemed, 'tis therefore too precious to be embezzled and trifled away. The connection of those two precepts, Ephes. 5.15, 16. of walking circumspectly not as Fools, but as Wise, and ⟨p. 86⟩that of Redeeming the time more than intimates, that to squander time is a foolish thing. Of the several sorts of things that we make our selves, their shape and frame, shows their use and end. Are we to make a less judicious estimate of the Works of God? If we therefore contemplate our selves, and consider what a sort of Production Man is, Can we allow our selves to think God made him a reasonable Creature on purpose to play the Fool? Or can we live as if we thought so, without reproaching our Maker? But whereas he who hath been the Author to us of such a Nature, capable of improving a life's time in this World unto most valuable purposes, hath also been the Author of such a Law, requiring us to redeem time. The reproach will be wholly turned off from