4 31,2 THE END .OF TIME. {DISe. r; what it is good for, nor what use to make of it ; they are quite at a loss how to get rid of this tedious thing, called time, which lies daily as a burden on their hands. In- deed, if their head ache, or their face grow pale, and a physician feel their pulse, or look wishfully on their countenance, and especially, if lie should shake his head, or tell them his fears, that they will not hold out long, what surprize of soul, what agonies and terrors seize them on a sudden, for fear of the end of time ? For they are conscious how unfit they are for eternity : Yet when the pain vanishes, and they feel health again, they are as much at a loss as ever, what to do with the rem- nant of life.. O the painful and unhappy ignorance of the sons and daughters of men, that are sent hither on a trial for eter- nity, and yet know not how to pass away time ! They know not how to wear out life, and get soon enough to the end of the day : They doze their hours away, or saunter from place to place, without any design or meaning : They enquire of every one they meet, what they shall do to kill time, as the French phrase is, be- cause they cannot spend it fast enough They are perpe- tually calling in the assistance of others, to laugh ar spórt, or trifle with them, and to help them off with this dead weight of time, while, at the same moment, if you do but mention the end of time, they are dreadfully afraid of coming near it. What folly and distraction is this ? What sottish inconsistency is found in the heart and practice of sinful men Eccles. ix. 3. " The heart ofthe sons of men isfull of evil; madness is in their heart while they live, and, after that, they go down to the dead." O that these loiterers would once consider, that time loiters not ! daysand hours, months and years loiter not ! each of them flies away with swiftest wing, as fast as suc- cession admits of, and bears them onward to the goal of eternity. If they delay and linger, among toys and sha- dows, time knows no delay ; and they will, one day, learn by bitter experience, what substantial, important, and eternal blessings they have lost by their criminal and shameful waste of time. The apostlePeter assures them ; 2 Pet.ii. 3. Though they slumber and sleep in a lethargy of sin, so that you cannot awaken them, yet s`. their judgment lingereth not, and their damnation
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