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which is but a little piece of that which is nothing, time? and yet the best things are nothing without that. Honours, pleasures, possessions, presented to us out of time? in our decrepit and distasted and unapprehensive age, lose their office, and lose their name; they are not honours to us that shall never appear, nor come abroad into the eyes of the people, to receive honour from them who give it; nor pleasures to us, who have lost our sense to taste them; nor possessions to us, who are departing from the possession of them. Youth is their critical day, that judges them, that denominates them, that inanimates and informs them, and makes them honours, and pleasures, and possessions; and when they come in an unapprehensive age, they come as a cordial when the bell rings out, as a pardon when the head is off. We rejoice in the comfort of fire, but does any man cleave to it at midsummer? We are glad of the freshness and coolness of a vault, but does any man keep his Christmas there; or are the pleasures of the spring acceptable in autumn? If happiness be in the season, or in the climate, how much happier then are birds than men, who can change the climate and accompany and enjoy the same season ever. XIV. EXPOSTULATION. My God, my God, wouldst thou call thyself the ancient of days,[194] if we were not to call ourselves to an account for our days? Wouldst thou chide us for _standing idle here all the day_,[195] if we were sure to have more days to make up our harvest? When thou bidst us _take no thought for to-morrow, for sufficient unto the day_ (to every day) _is the evil thereof_,[196] is this truly, absolutely, to put off all that concerns the present life? When thou reprehendest the Galatians by thy message to them, _That they observed days, and months, and times, and years_,[197] when thou sendest by the same messenger to forbid the Colossians all critical days, indicatory days, _Let no man judge you in respect of a holy day, or of a new moon, or of a sabbath_,[198] dost thou take away all consideration, all distinction of days? Though thou remove them from being of the essence of our salvation, thou leavest them for assistances, and for the exaltation of our devotion, to fix ourselves, at certain periodical and stationary times, upon the consideration of those things which thou hast done for us, and the crisis, the trial, the judgment, how those things have wrought upon us and disposed us to a spiritual recov
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