SERMON ON THE NEW YEAR.

Psalm xxxix. 5.

Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live.

WHEN he wrote the Psalm from which these words are taken, David appears to have laboured under the deepest affliction both of mind and body. The account which he gives of his own feelings and conduct at the time, is a very remarkable one. Knowing how useless and how wicked are all clamorous and hasty complaints, he determines to be silent, and to give his enemies no advantage over him. I said, I will take heed to my ways; that I offend not in my tongue, I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle, while the ungodly is in my sight. But though he abstained from every expression of peevishness or desperation, he might have innocently and reasonably entered, like righteous Job, into a justification both of himself and of his God. Remembering, however, from the example of Job, how liable, even in this respect, he was to be mistaken; he kept silence, yea, even from good words; but it was pain and grief unto him. There REMEMBRANCER, No. 37.

is not, indeed, a more painful feeling, than when the heart, full of its own bitterness and sorrow, knows not to whom it shall impart its troubles, nor upon whom it shall repose its grief. Such was the case with David; destitute of every earthly comforter and friend, he flies for consolation and support to a higher power, and pours forth his tears and his prayers into the bosom of his Father and his God. My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing, the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue. Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live. These are not the words of fretfulness or despair, but the words of soberness and truth. He does not ask with idle curiosity to know the exact day and hour on which his life shall end-that is not his meaning. He only asks to be so convinced of the shortness of his days, as to be enabled thereby the better to bear his present sorrows, and to prepare for his future end. This he asks, that he may be certified how long he has to live; that he may know and feel how short a space even the longest life affords

B

for the exercise of piety and obedience, and that as he is certified of its shortness, so he may be certified of its value. This sense of the words agrees exactly with the translation of them as we find it in the Bible. "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days; what it is, that I may know how frail I am. The sum and substance, indeed, of his request, is contained in the last verse of the Psalm; an entreaty it is, in which he will be joined most earnestly by every one among us, who knows that he is a stranger only, and a sojourner upon earth, as ail his fathers were. The entreaty is this, 0 spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence and be no more seen. May God in mercy grant that, in the case of every one of us, it

his

may

be so.

But many of us, however earnestly they would pray for this, would pray for something more. We often think that if we knew the precise time of our end, and the exact number of our days, we should be the better and the happier creatures. We should not be the better, but the worse for this addition to our knowledge. It would make us more unhappy, more vicious, and more desperate. To shew this will be one of the chief objects of the present discourse. Let us consider then, First, the wisdom of God in hiding from us the exact time of our end.

Secondly, The mercy of God in giving us the means so to know our end and the number of our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom.

First. God in his wisdom has hid from us the exact number of our days. Suppose now, for a moment, that the Almighty was to reveal to each of us the precise length of his existence suppose he was to reveal to one that he should live fifty years, to another that he should live ten, to another that he should live one, to another that this very night his soul should be required of him.

What would be the immediate consequence of this? The affairs of the world around us would be immediately plunged into utter confusion. Who would sow, if he did not hope to reap, who would labour and toil if he was certain that he should not enjoy the fruits? All activity, all motive, all spirit, would be destroyed; and in their stead would succeed envy, jealousy, and repining. Nor with respect to the soul itself, would the change be for the better. If a young man, in the hope only of living fifty years, thinks that he may safely spend the first half of them in vice and folly, what would he do if he was certain? Would he not the more securely put off his repentance and enjoy his sin? How would the day of reformation, year after year, be delayed; till at length in the agony of despair, even with the time open before him, he would imagine that it was too late. On the other hand, if a young man in the vigour of health and strength were assured that in one short year his soul would be required of him, how would his thoughts be drawn off from his duty to man, and fixed only upon his duty to God, he would forget that both these duties should be discharged together; in his anxiety and alarm for his own happiness, he would neglect those exertions by which he might encrease the happiness of others. wisely therefore, and most mercifully to ourselves and to others, has God concealed from our eyes the exact measure of our life and number of our days.

Most

But in return for this, God has given us the means so to know our end and the number of our days, as to apply our hearts unto wisdom.

The experience of every hour will teach us that our days are at best but a span long, and that every man living is altogether vanity. The term of our appointed time must conclude quickly, and it may conclude suddenly. How soon are the youngest and the strongest called

from this world to another, how rapid is their departure, how unex pected their summons! These are the warnings which a merciful God gives to us that remain, these are among the means which his wisdom employs to teach us how near our own end may be, and how short the number of our days. Guided by these awful lessons, let us apply our hearts to wisdom. Let the very uncertainty of life teach us to do the work of him that sent us, while it is day, for the night cometh, and quickly cometh, when no man can work.

Disease and pain, disappointment and sorrow, are also among the means which the Almighty uses to bring us to a knowledge of our latter end. While all things go smoothly on, we are little inclined to believe that they will ever conclude; the greater our enjoyments are, the longer we think that they will last, and in our prosperity we say that we never shall be removed. O death, says the son of Sirach, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions, unto the man that hath nothing to vex him, and that hath prosperity in all things. Most merciful then is the Almighty in these his dispensations of affliction and pain, that wean our souls from the seductions and the vanities of the world, and direct our eyes to that better country, to which we are all fast travelling. When the judgments of God are in the earth, then it is that men will learn righteousness. And under tribulation and sorrow the thought of his latter end will be a thought of comfort to every Christian soul. Then it is that he will number his days with satisfaction and joy; he will see how short the space of his earthly trial is, and how everlasting is his reward. Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning; in that eternal morning which shall hereafter rise and shine upon every suffering servant of God.

The duties which all of us in our respective stations have to discharge, will teach us also to know our end. If high and low, rich and poor, have each a task to perform, and each an account to give, will they not each inquire what is the time allowed them for their work, and what is the day on which their stewardship must be resigned? Let a man once seriously think of his duty, and he will think also of his end. He that knows how much he has to do, will number well the days which are given him to do it. Be they many or be they few, he will take care that they shall all be well employed; and that when the Lord cometh, however suddenly, he shall not find him sleeping.

But the greatest of those means which the Almighty has given us of knowing our end and the number of our days, is his Holy Word. There are the promises, there the prospects, there the hopes which unite things present to things future, earth to heaven, time to eternity. There it is that we are certified how long we have to live, not in this short and troublesome world, but in the kingdom of God, and in the presence of the Lamb. By faith we know that our end in this life is but our beginning in another; by faith we know that death is but the stream that divides the wilderness in which as strangers and pilgrims we now wander, from the Canaan of our everlasting inheritance. Here we have no abiding city, but we seek one above, whose maker and whose builder is God. This is our real end, for this, by the grace of God, let all our days be numbered, that whether our Lord shall call us sooner or later, we may ever be prepared to obey. Knowing then the end, and the number of your days let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching: and if