SERMON VII.

ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.

JOHN vii. 33.

Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.

An improper use of time is the source of all the disorders which reign among men. Some pass their whole life in idleness and sloth, equally useless to the world, their country, and themselves; others, in the tumult of business and worldly affairs. Some appear to exist, only for the purpose of indulging an unworthy indolence, and escaping, by a diversity of pleasures, from the weariness which every where pursues them, in proportion as they fly from it: Others, in a continual search amidst the cares of the world, for occupations which may free them from themselves. It appears that time is a com

mon enemy, against whom all men have agreed to conspire; Their whole life is one continued and deplorable endeavour to rid themselves of it. The happiest are those who best succeed in not feeling the weight of its duration; and the principal satisfaction they reap, either from frivolous pleasures or serious occupations, is the abridgement of days and moments, and deliverance from them, almost without a perception of their having passed.

Time, that precious deposit confided to us by the Lord, is therefore become a burden which fatigues and oppresses us: We dread the loss of it for ever, as the greatest of evils; and we almost equally dread the obligation to support its weariness and duration. It is a treasure which we would wish to retain for ever, yet which we cannot suffer to remain in our possession.

This time, however, of which we make so little estimate, is the only means of our eternal salvation. We lose it without regret, which is a crime; we employ it only for worldly purposes, which is a species of madness. Let us employ the time which God allows us, because it is short: Let us employ it only in labouring for our salvation, because it is only given us, that we may be saved; that is to say, let us be sensible of the value of time, and let us lose it not; let us know the use of it, and employ it only for the purpose it was given : By these means, we shall avoid both the dangers of a slothful, and the inconveniences of a hurried life. This is the subject of the present discourse.

PART I. Three circumstances, in general, decide the value of things among men: The great advantages which may accrue to us from them; the short space we

have to enjoy them; and, lastly, the improbability of ever regaining them, if once lost. Now, behold, my brethren, the principal motives which ought to render time precious and estimable to every wise man : In the first place, it is the price of eternity: In the second place, it is short, and we cannot make too much haste to reap the benefit of it: And, lastly, it is irreparable, for, once lost, it can rever be regained. It is the price of eternity: Yes, my brethren, man, condemned to death by the sin of his birth, ought to receive life only to lose it, even from the moment he has received it. The blood alone of Jesus Christ has effaced this sentence of death and punishment, pronounced against all mankind in the person of the first sinner: We live, though the offspring of a father condemned to death, and the heirs of his punishment, because the Redeemer died for us: The death of Jesus Christ is, therefore, the source, and the only claim of right we have to life; our days, our moments, are the first blessings which have flowed to us from His cross; and the time which we so vainly lose, is the price, however, of His blood, the fruit of His death, and the merit of His sacrifice.

Not only as the children of Adam, do we deserve no longer to live; but even all the crimes we have added to those of our birth, are become new sentences of death against us. So many times as we have violated the law of the Author of life, so many times from that moment, ought we to have lost it.

Every sinner is, therefore, a child of death and anger; and every time the mercy of God has suspended, after each of our crimes, the sentence of condemnation and death, it is a new life, as it were, his goodness has granted, in order to allow us time to repair the criminal use we had hitherto made of our own.

I speak not of the diseases, accidents and numberless dangers, which have so often menaced our life; which we have so often seen terminate that of our friends and nearest connections; and from which his goodness has always delivered us. The life which we enjoy, is like a perpetual miracle, therefore, of his divine mercy: The time which is left to us, is the conseqence of an infinity of tender mercies and grace, which compose the thread and the train, as it were, of our life: every moment we breathe, is like a new gift we receive from God; and to waste that time, and these moments, in a state of deplorable idleness, is to insult that infinite goodness which has granted them to us, to dissipate an inestimable grace, which is not our due, and to deliver up to chance the price of our eternity. Behold, my brethren, the first guilt attached to the loss of time: It is a precious treasure left to us, though we have no longer any right to it, it is given to us for the purpose alone of purchasing the kingdom of heaven, and we dissipate it as a thing the most vile and contemptible, and of which we know not what use to make.

In the world, we would regard that man as a fool, who, heir to a great fortune, should allow it to be wasted through want of care and attention, and should make no use of it, either to raise himself to places and digni ties, which might draw him from obscurity, or to acquire a solid establishment, which might place him in future beyond the reach of any reverse.

But, my brethren, time is that precious treasure, which we have inherited from our birth, and which the Almighty leaves to us through pure compassion: It is in our possession, and it depends upon ourselves to make a proper use of it. It is not in order to exalt ourselves

to frivolous dignities here below, or to worldly grandeur: Alas! whatever passes away is too vile to be the price of time, which is itself the price of eternity: It is in order to be placed in the heavens above, at the side of Jesus Christ; it is in order to separate us from the crowd of the children of Adam, above all the Cæsars and kings of the earth, in that immortal society of the happy, who shall all be kings, and whose reign shall have no bounds but those of eternity.

What madness, then, to make no use of a treasure so inestimable; in frivolous amusements, to waste that time, which may be the price of eternal salvation, and to allow the hopes of our immortality to be dissipated in smoke! Yes, my brethren, there is not a day, an hour, a moment, but which, properly employed, may give us a title to heaven. A single day lost ought therefore, to leave us remorse, a thousand times more lively and poig nant than the failure of the greatest worldly projects; yet, nevertheless, this time is a burden to us: Our whole life is only one continued endeavour to lose it; and, in spite of all our anxieties to waste it, there always remains more than we know how to employ; and yet, the thing upon the earth we have the least value for, is our time; our acts of kindness we reserve for our friends; our bounties for our dependents; our riches for our children and relations; our praises for those who appear worthy of them: Our time we give to the whole world; we expose it, as I may say, a prey to all mankind; they even do us a favour in relieving us from it: It is a weight, as it were, which we support in the midst of the world, while incessantly in search of some one who may ease us of its burden. In this manner, time, that gift of God, that most precious blessing of his clemency, and