On Remembering Our Creator in the Days of Our Youth
“Renember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them..’*
Two things are principally commended to us in this text. I. A duty enjoined, to remember our Creator. II. The principal season of that duty, the days of our youth. Which season is recommended for this duty, by way of preference above the evil days; not, as if the remembering our Creator were unseasonable at any time; but, because the time of our youth is more seasonable, than that evil time, or those evil days, wherein we shall say, we “have no pleasure in them.
I. The duty enjoined, is to remember our Creator; which imports two things: 1. To know our Creator; for we cannot remember that we have not some knowledge of. 2. To remember him; often to call him to mind.
1. The former part of this duty is to know our
Creator. This is that “which a god David recommended to his young son Solomon, “And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father.” And we have two excellent books wherein the knowledge of God is discovered to us; the book of his works, the works of his creation and providence; and the book of his word, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, wherein he is more fully, and explicitly, and plainly discovered to us. These books we are often to read and consider. And this is the chief reason, why understanding and reason is given unto mankind, and not unto the beasts that perish: namely, that we might improve it to the attaining of the knowledge of Almighty Grod, in the due consideration of the works and word of God. And hereby, we learn his eternity, his infinitude, his wisdom, his power, his goodness, his justice, his mercy, his all-sufficiency, his sovereignty, his providence, his will, his purpose concerning mankind, his care of them, his beneficence towards them. And the nature of this knowledge is not barely speculative, but it is a knowledge that is operative, that perfects our nature, that conforms it to the image of that God we thus know, that se mankind in its due state and station; keeps it in its just subordination unto the God we thus know, which is our greatest perfection. This knowledge mut necessarily make us love him, because he is good, merciful, bountiful, beneficent; and, therefere, the wise roan chooseth to express him by that tkfe of Creator, from whom we receive our very being, and all the good that can accompany it. This knowledge teatlteth us to be thankM lolilta wpx greatest benefactor; to depend upon him, because of his power and goodness; to fear him, because of his power and justice; to obey him, because of his power, justice, and sovereignty; to walk before him in sincerity, because of his power, justice, and wisdom. In sum, the several attributes of Almighty God strike upon the choicest parts, and faculties, and a£Pections, and tendencies of our hearts and souls, and tune them into that order and harmony that is best suited to the perfecting of our nature, and the placing of them in a right and just posture, both in relation to Almighty God, ourselves, and others.
2. The second part of our duty is, to remember our Creator thus known; which is to have the aense and exercise of this knowledge always about us; to set Almighty God always before our eyes; frequently to think of him, to make our application to him. For many there are that may have a knowledge of God, but yet the exercise of that knowledge is suspended; sometimes by inadvertence and inconsiderateness, sometimes by a wilful abdication of the exercise of that knowledge. And thes6 are such as forget God, that have not God in all their thoughts; that say to the Almighty, “Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.”
The benefits of remembering our Creator are very great: 1. It keeps the soul and life in a constant, true, and regular frame. As the want of the knowledge, so the want of the remembrance of God, is the cause of that disorder and irregularity of our minds and lives. 2. And, consequently, the best preventive of sin, and apostacy, and backsliding from God and our duty to him. 3. It keeps the mind and soul full of constant peace and tranquillity; bd cause it maintains a constant, humble, and comfortable converse of the soul, with the presence and favour of God. 4. It renders all conditions of life comfortable, and full of contentment, because it keeps the soul in the presence of God, and communicates unto it continual influxes of contentment and comfort; for what can disturb him, who, by the continual remembrance of his Creator, hath a constant acquaintance with this power, goodness, and all-sufficiency? 5. Though no man hath ground enough to promise to himself an immunity from temporal calamities, yet certainly there is no better expedient in the world to secure a roan against them, and preserve him from them, than this: for the most of those sharp afflictions that befal man, are but to make them remember their Creator when they have forgotten him, that he may open their ears to discipline, and awaken them to remember their Creator. Read Job xxxiii. A man that keeps about him the remembrance of his Creator, prevents, in a great measure, the necessity of that severe discipline. 6. In short, this remembrance of our Creator, is an antidote against the allurements of the world, the temptation of Satan, the deceitfulness of sin. It renders the best things the world can afford inconsiderable, in comparison of him whom we remember; it renders the worst the world can do but little and contemptible; so long as we remember our Creator, it makes our lives happy, our deaths easy, and carries us to an everlasting enjoyment of that Creator whom we have here remembered.
. The injunction of the duty of lemeirJoetYw csvsx
Creator, is the more importantly necessary: I. In regard of the great consequence of the benefit we receive from it, as stated before. 2. In regard of the great danger of omitting it. The truth is, the greater part of the miscarriages of our lives are occasioned by the want of the remembrance of our Creator: then it is that we fail in our duty, when we forget him. 3. In regard of the many temptations this world affords to make us forget our Creator; the pleasures, and profits, and recreations, and preferments, ftnd noise, and business of this life, yea, many of them, which are in themselves and in their nature, lawful,. are apt to engross our thoughts, our time, our cares, and to leave too little room in our memory for this great duty that most deserves it, namely, the remembrance of our- Creator. Our memory is a noble cabinet, and there cannot be a more excellent jewel to lodge in it than our great and bountiful Creator; yet, for the most part, we fill this noble cabinet with pebbles and straws, if not with dung and filth; with either sinful, or, at least, with unprofitable, impertinent, trifling furniture.
II. The season for this duty, that here is principally commended, the days of our youth: and the reasons that commend that season for this duty, are principally these:
1. Because this is the most accepted time. God Almighty was pleased under the old law to intimate this, in the reservation to himself of the first-fruits, and the first-born; and surely the first-fruits of our lives, when dedicated to his remembrance, are best accepted of him.
2, Because this season is commoulY ow turning season ta good or evil. If in youth we forget our Creator, it is a very great difficulty to resume our duty; commonly it requires either very extraordinary grace or very strong affliction to reclaim a man to bis duty, whose youth hath been .seasoned with ill principles, and the forgetfulness of God.
S. Because the time of youth is most obnoxious to forget God; there is great inadvertency and inconsideratenesS) unstableness, vanity, love of pleasures, easiness to be corrupted in youth; and therefore necessary in this season to lodge the remembrance of our Creator in our youth, to be an antidote against these defects, to establish and fix the entrance of our lives with this great preservative, the remembrance of our Creator.
4. When Almighty God lays hold of our youth, by a timdy remembrance of himself, and thereby takes the first possession of our souls, commonly it keeps its ground, and seasons the whole course of our ensuing lives; it prevents and anticipates the devil and the world. It is true, it may possibly be, that natural corruption and worldly temptations may suspend the actings of this principle, but it is rarely extinguished; it is like that abiding seed remaining in him, spoken of by John, 1 John iii. 9. which will recover him agaii
5. The last reason is, because there are evil days that will certainly come, which will render this work of remembering our Creator difficult to be first begun; and therefore it is the greatest prudence imaginable to lay in this stock before they come, for it will certainly stand us in great stead when they do come. It is the greatest imprudence in the y)oi^1^ ix that busiDess which is necessary to be donct to such a time wherein it is very difficult to be done; and it is the greatest prudence in the world to do that work which roust be done, in such a season wherein it may be easily and safely done. He that lays in this store of remembrance of his Creator before the evil day come, will find it of the greatest use and service to him in that evil day.
Now those evil days are many, and all of them befal some; but some of them will certainly befal all mankind.
1. An evil day of public or private calamities. He that beforehand hath laid in this stock of remembering his Creator, will be easily able to bear any calamity when it comes; but a man that hath not done this beforehand, will find it a very unseasonable time to begin to set about it, when fear, and anguish, and perplexity, and storms, and confusion, are round about him, and take up all his thoughts.
2. The evil day of sickness is an unseasonable time, or, at least, a very difficult time to begin such a business. When sickness, and pain, and disorder, and uneasiness, shall render a man impatient and full of trouble, and his thoughts full of disorder, and discomposure, and waywardness, then it will be found a difficult business to begin the remembrance of our Creator. It is true,, no time is utterly unacceptable to God for this work; but surely it is best to begin before this evil day coroe: for then it will be a comfort, and mitigate the pains and discomposures of sickness, when a man can thus reflect upon his life past, as Hezekiah did in his sickness, Remember, O Lord, that I have not failed to remember my Creator in the days of m Vi^AxJcvr
3. The evil day of old and infirm age, which is disease and burden of itself, and yet it is ever accom panied with our sicknesses, pains, and diseases, and a natural frowarduess, and roorosity, and diseontentedness of mind, and therefore, not so seasonable to begin the undertaking of this work as in flourishing youth. And indeed, a man cannot reasonably expect, that the great God, who invites the remembering our Creator in the days of our youth, and hath been ungratefully denied, should accept the dregs of our age for a sacrifice, when we have neglected the thoughts of him in our strong and flourishing age. But, on the other side, that man that hath spent the time of his youth and strength in the remembrance of his Creator, may, with comfort and contentment, in his old and feeble age, reflect upon his past life with Hezekiah, “Remember, O Lord, I pray thee, that I have not failed to remember thee in the days of my youth and strength; and I pray thee accept o( the endeavours of my old decayed age, to preserve that remembrance of thee which I so early began, and have constantly continued, and pardon the defects that the natural decays of my strength and age have occasioned in that duty,”
4. The evil day of death: when my soul sits hovering upon my lips, and is ready to take its flight; when all the world cannot give my life any certain truce for a day or for an hour, and I am under the cold embraces of death; then to begin to remember my Creator is a difficult and unseasonable time. But when I have begun that business early, and held on the remembrance of my Creator, it will be a cordial even against death itself, au “n c^w my soul into the presence of that God, which I have thus remembered, in and from the days o£ my youth, with triumph and rejoicing.
Briefly, therefore,
L “Remember thy Creator in the dys di thy youth;” because thou knowest not whelbei thou shalt have any other season to remember him: death may overtake thee, and lay thee in the laud of forgetfulness; thy spring may be thy autumn and thy early bud may be the only fruit that mortality may afford thee.
2* “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth;” because it is a time of invitation: neglect not this season, because thou knowest not whether evei thou shalt be again invited to it.
3. ^’ Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” that thy Creator may remember thee in the days of thy sickness and old age, and in the evil day.
4. “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” lest thy Creator neglect thee in the evil day. Neglected favours, especially from God, may justly provoke him never to lend thee more: “Because I called, and ye refused; I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh.”
5. ‘^ Remember thy Creator ip the days of thy youth,” because it will heal the evil of evil days: when they come, it will turn those days, that are in themselves evil, to become days of ease and comfort; it will heal the evil of the day of affliction, of sick* ness, of old age, and of death itself; and make it a passage into a better, a more abiding life.