Number our days

Psa 90:12 KJV - So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom.

The more we number our days—the fewer sins we shall have to number! As a copy is then safest from blotting when dust is put upon it, so are we from sinning when, in the time of our youth, we remember that we are but dust. The tears of young penitents do more scorch the devils than all the flames of hell; for hereby all their hopes are blasted, and the great underminer countermined and blown up. The devil's bids us to tarry—there is time enough to repent. God bids repent early, in the morning of your youth, for then your sins will be fewer and lesser. Well! young men, remember this: he who will not at the first-hand buy godly counsel cheap, shall at the second-hand buy repentance ever dear.

Ah! young men! young men! if you do not begin to be godly early, those sins that are now as jewels sparkling in your eyes, will at last be millstones about your necks, to sink you forever! Among many things that Beza, in his last will and testament, gave God thanks for, this was the first and chief, that God, at the age of sixteen years, had called him to the knowledge of the truth, and so prevented many sins and sorrows that otherwise would have overtaken him, and have made his life less happy and more miserable. Young saints often prove old angels—but old sinners seldom prove godly saints, etc.

[Thomas Brooks, Apples of Gold]