The works of George Swinnock, M.A

¹The Rock of Ages, and everlasting Father, to whom a thousand years are but as one day, having out of his rich mercy afforded me a short time in this world, not to play or toy with temporal things, but to prepare my soul for my blessed eternity; I Wish that I may never waste that precious season (which is given me for the working out my own salvation) about needless affairs, but mind the one thing necessary, and pass the whole time of my sojourning here in the fear of my God; Every day that I live, and do not improve for my eternal good, is lost; If I live to eat, and drink, and sleep, the beast liveth in ⟨p. 531⟩me, not the man; I do but act a brutish part in an humane shape. If I live to buy and sell, and increase my heaps, the Heathen liveth in me, not the Christian; What do I more then an Infidel? Time is a silver stream, gliding into the Ocean; Eternity depends upon this poor pittance of time; As I use time well or ill, so eternity will use me; The everlasting harvest will be suitable to the seed that is sown in time, whether Wheat or Tares. Its irrational to expect a crop of Barley, if I sow Thistles; or a crop of bliss for ever, if I now sow to the flesh; My life is given me, to dress my soul in for the coming of my Bride-groom at death. Whatsoever I do, if it hath not relation and subserviency to my last end, and chiefest good, it is lost time, and waste strength; and though I may be so busy as to sweat about it, yet Christ may say•to me, as to him that stood in the Market-place; Why standest thou all the day idle? Lord, my time is not mine own, but thine; The day is thine, the night also is thine. It is thine by creation, and why not thine by a religious observation? It was thy favour that I was not turned out of the womb, into the unquenchable fire; I could Wish, that as soon as ever the Sun of my life arose, I had gone forth to my spiritual labour till the evening of my death, that my childhood and youth had been employed in remembering my Creator; but since its impossible to recall those days and years which I have spent in folly and vanity; O teach me so to number my (remaining) days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom, and live (every day of my life) in the fear of the Lord all the day long.