The works of George Swinnock, M.A

⁵I Wish that I may every day so cast up my accounts, that I maybe always ready for the great Audit-day. Wise Stewards do not write down great sums in gross, which they have disbursed for their Lords at several times, but set down the particulars, whereby they are prepared for a general reckoning, and enabled to justify their accounts: My trust is more weighty then of any Princes Steward on earth, my Master will be more exact then the severest humane Lord; and am I not then concerned so to number my days, as to reckon every day what I recei•e from my Lord, what I disburse for my Lord, and at the foot of every day to write the total sum! How foolish is he that rejects his books, till his book• reject him? […] is it not better for me to look over the book of my conscience, and observe what blots and errors are there, whilst I have licence and liberty to correct them, then to neglect them, till those eyes which are purer then to behold iniquity, come to look it over and leave be denied of ever amending what he finds amiss! O my soul, this evening now I am writing this page, I must send to thee Amaziah's challenge of Joash; Come let us see one another in the face? Why should we that are so near together, be such strangers to each other? I must ask thee, as Elisha did Gehezi, Whence comest thou? Where hast thou been? What hast thou done this day for God and thy self? Hast thou lived, or only been: in the world this day? Doth thy soul work, ⟨p. 547⟩thine eternity work go forward or backward? Hast thou lived as if thou w•rt going to die, and walked in the fear of the Lord all the day long? Hath the awe and dread of the divine Majesty all along possessed thee? Dost thou consider that thou hast one day less to live, and one day more to account for? Suppose God should come to thee this night, as he did to Belshazzar, with a Mene, Mene, It is numbered, It is numbered; Thy days are told, God hath counted them up, and finished them, thou shalt not live to see a morrow. Thy days are extinct, the grave is ready for thee; Art thou ready for thy grave? If God should say to thee, as that Lord to his Servant, Give an account of thy Stewardship, for thou shalt be no longer Steward? Are thy accounts and Gods even? Dost thou reckon as he doth? What do all the actions of this day stand for in thine account, Figures or Ciphers, something or nothing?