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

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 ⟨p. 87⟩him upon our selves, and our consequent ruin be upon our own guilty Heads. And he will find some among our selves, who by the advantage only of the reasonable Nature, common to us and them; that are instructors to us, not to waste our days in vanity, and will be witnesses against us if we so foolishly consume, what we cannot command.

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 embezelled and trifled away. The connexion 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, shews 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 lifes time in this World unto most valuable purposes, hath also been the Autho of such a Law, requiring us to redem time. The reproach will be wholly turned off from