By this means you will get a facility, and dexterity in heart work: tis pity those smaller portions of our time betwixt solemn duties should lye upon our hands and be rendered useless to us. O learn to save, and be good husbands upon your thoughts; to this purpose, a neat Author speaks,1 these Parentheses which happen to come between the more solemn passages (whether business or recreations) of humane life, are wont to be lost by most men; for want of a due value for them, and even by good men, for want of skill to preserve them: for though they do not properly despise them; yet they neglect, or lose them, for want of knowing how to rescue them; or what to do with them, but although grains of sand, and ashes be a part, but of a despicable smallness, and liable to be scattered and blown away, yet the skilful artificer by a vehement fire brings numbers of these to afford him •hat noble substance glass, by whose ⟨p. 215⟩help we may both see ourselves, and our blemishes lively represented, (as in looking glasses) and discern celestial objects (as with Telescopes) and with the sun beams kindle disposed materials (as with burning glasses) so when these little fragments, or parcels of time, which if not carefully looked to would be dissipated and lost, come to be managed by a skilful Contemplator, and to be improved by the celestial fire of devotion they may be so ordered as to afford us both looking glasses to dress our Souls by, and prospectives to discover heavenly wonders, and incentives to inflame our hearts with zeal, thus far he.
By this means you will get a facillity, and dexterity in heart work: tis pity those smaller portions of our time betwixt solemn duties should lye upon our hands and be rendred useless to us. O learn to save, and be good husbands upon your thoughts; to this purpose, a neat Authour speaks,1 these Parentheses which happen to come between the more solemn passages (whether business or recreations) of humane life, are wont to be lost by most men; for want of a due value for them, and even by good men, for want of skill to preserve them: for though they doe not properly despise them; yet they neglect, or lose them, for want of knowing how to rescue them; or what to doe with them, but although grains of sand, and ashes be a part, but of a •e•picable smalness, and lyable to be scat••red and blown away, yet the skilful artificer by a vehement fire brings numbers of these to afford him •hat noble substance glass, by whose ⟨p. 215⟩help we may both see ourselves, and our blemishes lively represented, (as in looking glasses) and discern caelestial objects (as with Tellescopes) and with the sun beams kindle disposed materials (as with burning glasses) so when these little fragments, or parcels of time, which if not carefully lookt to would be dissipated and lost, come to be managed by a skilful Contemplator, and to be improved by the caelestial fire of devotion they may be so ordered as to afford us both looking glasses to dress our Souls by, and prospectives to discover heavenly wonders, and incentives to inflame our hearts with zeal, thus far he.
- 1Boyles occasional reflect. pag. 9. 10.
