THE END OF TIME. 345 sary, and proper to relieve, the fatigue of the spirits, when they are tired with business or labour, and to pre- pare for new labours and new businesses : But have we not followed sports without measure, and without due limitation? Hath not some of that very time been spent in them, which should have been laid out in preparing for death and eternity, and seeking things of far higher importance ? . 3. Have you not wasted too much time in your fre- quent clubs, and what you call good company, and in places of public resort. Hath not the tavern, or the coffee-house, or the ale-house seen and known you, from hour to hour, for a whole evening, and that sometimes before the trade or labours of the day should have been ended ? And when your bible, and your closet, or the devotion of your family, have sometimes called upon your conscience, have you not turned a deaf ear to them all ? 4. Have not useless-and impertinent visits been made to no good purpose, or been prolonged beyond all ne- cessity or improvement? When your conversation runs low, even to the dregs, and both you and your friends have been at a loss what to say,next, and knew not how to fill up the time, yet the visit must go on, and time must be wasted. Sometimes the wind and the weather, and twenty insignificancies, or, what is much worse, scandal of persons or families, have come into your re- lief, that there might not be too long a silence : But not one word of God or goodness could find room to enter in, and relieve the dull hour. Is none of this time ever to be accounted for ? And will it sound well in the ears of the great Judge, " We ran to these sorry topics, these slanderous and backbiting stories, because we could not tell what to talk of, and we knew not how to spend our time." 5. Have you not been guilty of frequent, and even perpetual delays or neglects of your proper necessary business in the civil life, or in the solemn duties of reli- gion, by busying yourselves in some other needless thing, under this pretence, " It is time enough yet ?" Have you learned that important and eternal rule of prudence, " never delay till to- morrow, what may be done to-day; never put off, till the next hour, what may
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