*And if it be reasonable and necessary to deny our worldly tempers, and live wholly unto God, because we are _certain_ that we are to die at the end of _five years_; surely it must be much more reasonable and necessary for us to live in the same spirit, because we have no _certainty_ that we shall live _five weeks_. 16. *Again, if we are to add _twenty_ years to the _five_, which is, in all probability, more than will be added to the lives of many people, who are at man’s estate; what a poor thing it is! How small a difference is there between five, and twenty-five years? It is said, that a _day_ is with God as a _thousand years_, and a thousand years as one day; because, in regard to his eternity, this difference is as nothing. *Now, as we are created to be _eternal_, to live an endless succession of ages upon ages, where _thousands_, and _millions of thousands_ of years will have no proportion to our everlasting life in God; so with regard to his eternal state, which is our real state, twenty-five _years_ is as poor a pittance as twenty-five _days_. We can never make any true judgment of time as it relates to us, without considering the true state of our _duration_. If we are _temporary_ beings, then a little time may justly be called a great deal in relation to us; but if we are _eternal_ beings, then the difference of a few years is as nothing. 17. If we were to suppose _three_ different _sorts_ of rational beings, all of _different_, but _fixed_ duration; one sort that lived _certainly_ only a _month_, the other a _year_, and the third an _hundred years_. If these beings were to meet together, and talk about time, they must talk in a very different language. _Half_ an _hour_ to those who were to live but a _month_, must be a very different thing, to what it is to those, who are to live an _hundred years_. As therefore time is thus a different thing, with regard to the _state_ of those who enjoy it; so if we would know what time is with regard to ourselves, we must consider our state. Now since our eternal state, is as certainly ours, as our present state; since we are as certainly to live for ever, as we are now to live at all; it is plain, that we cannot judge of the value of any particular time, as to us, but by comparing it to that eternal duration for which we are created. If you would know what _five years_ signify to a being that was to live an _hundred_, you must compare _five_ to a _hundred_, and see what proportion it bears to it, and then you would judge right. *So if you would know, what _twenty_ years signify to a son of _Adam_, you must compare it, not to a _million_ of ages, but to an _eternal duration_, to which no number of millions bears any proportion; and then you will judge right, by finding it _nothing_.