Resumo de Time Is Very Previous

Time is very precious, because when it is past, it cannot be recovered. There are many things which men possess which if they part with, they can obtain them again. If a man has parted with something, which he had, not knowing the worth of it, or the need he should have of it; he often can regain it, at least with pains and cost. If a man has been taken in a bargain, and has bartered away or sold something, and afterwards repents of it, he may often obtain a release, and recover what he had parted with. But it is not so with respect to time; when once that is gone, it is gone forever; no pains, no cost will recover it. Though we repent ever so much that we let it pass, and did not improve it while we had it, it will be to no purpose. Every part of it is successively offered to us, that we may choose whether we will make it our own, or not. But there is no delay; it will not wait upon us to see whether or no we will comply with the offer. But if we refuse, it is immediately taken away, and never offered more. As to that part of time, which is gone, however we have neglected to improve it, it is out of our possession and out of our reach. If we have lived fifty, or sixty, or seventy years, and have not improved our time, now it cannot be helped- it is eternally gone from us. All that we can do, is to improve the little that remains. Yes, if a man have spent all his life but a few moments unimproved, all that is gone is lost, and only those few remaining moments can possibly be made his own, and if the whole of a man's time be gone, and it be all lost, it is irrecoverable. Eternity depends on the improvement of time; but when once the time of life is gone, when once death is come, we have no more to do with time, there is no possibility of obtaining the restoration of it, or another space in which to prepare for eternity. If a man should lose the whole of his worldly substance, and become a bankrupt, it is possible that his loss may be made up. He may have another estate as good. But when the time of life is gone, it is impossible that we should ever obtain another such time. All opportunity of obtaining eternal welfare is utterly and everlastingly gone. Gold and silver are esteemed precious by men; but they are of no worth to any man, only as thereby he has an opportunity of avoiding or removing some evil, or of possessing himself of some good. And the greater the evil is which any man has advantage to escape, or the good which he has advantage to obtain, by any thing that he possesses, by so much the greater is the value of that thing to him, whatever it be. Thus if a man, by any thing which he has, may save his life, which he must lose without it, he will look upon that by which he has the opportunity of escaping so great an evil as death, to be very precious. Hence it is that time is so exceedingly precious, because by it we have opportunity of escaping everlasting misery, and of obtaining everlasting blessedness and glory. On this depends our escape from an infinite evil, and our attainment of an infinite good. Time ought to be esteemed by us very precious, because we are uncertain of its continuance. We know that it is very short, but we know not how short. We know not how little of it remains, whether a year, or several years, or only a month, a week, or a day. We are every day uncertain whether that day will not be the last, or whether we are to have the whole day. There is nothing that experience does more verify than this. If a man had but little provision laid up for a journey or a voyage, and at the same time knew that if his provision should fail, he must perish by the way, he would treasure it all the more. How much more would many men prize their time if they knew that they had but a few months, or a few days, more to live! And certainly a wise man will prize his time the more, as he knows not how much he has himself. This is the case with multitudes now in the world, who at present enjoy health, and see no signs f approaching death: many such, no doubt, are to die the next month, many the next week, yes, many probably tomorrow, and some this night; yet these same persons know nothing of it, and perhaps think nothing of it, and neither they nor their neighbors can say that they are more likely soon to be taken out of the world than others. This teaches us how we ought to prize our time, and how careful we ought to be, that we lose none.

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