The Uncertainty of Living to Another Year

Of the uncertainty of living to the period of anotheryear. The vanity of this life; the swifiness of time s and how to be improved.

I NOW begin another year: but what assurance have I to outlive it? I cannot say, how soon my sovereign Judge may call me hence, and summon me to appear before his righteous bar. O let me not defer my necessary preparation for death, which may be nearer than I imagine! let me mind the great things first, which are of absolute necessity to be done, some time or other, before I die. This perishing body, which I have pampered and indulged, at the expense of so much cost and time, may be putrifying in a silent grave before half this year be passed. Lord! bless this thought, to awaken my diligent endeavours to secure the blessedness of eternity! to mortify the desire of great things for iyself, in future years, by the considered possibility of dying before the end of this! let me look into the graves of others, and consider that this may quickly happen to me, and must, ere long, be my own case: let me think what this body will shortly be, when it hath been six or eight days separated from my soul; how vile! how loathsome! that I may despise the beauty, and be dead to the pleasures, of the body, which so easily, so suddenly, so strangely, may be changed. For no glass is more brittle, no bubble more vanishing, no ice more dissolving, no flower more fading, no shadow less substantial, no sleep or dream more deceiving, no sound more transient, nothing more vain and more uncertain, than life, on which all other things in this world depend. My days are as nothing,’’ saith Job, though they lasted above two ages.

There is hardly any thing so frail and feeble, mutable and uncertain, but the Spirit of God, in Scripture, sets forth the vanity of life by; as if he would teach us by it, from the sight of every perishing object which our eyes behold, to reflect on our own mortality* We sleep every night in the outer dian)ers of death; and, in some diseases, sleep, which is the image and picture of death, is taken away, to give place to the original, and make way for death. And every year, every week, every day, are we hastening to our final change; which may overtake us ere we are aware* Every day we lose some part of our lives; in our very growth, from infancy to manhood, our life decreases and grows less. Every pulse and breath tell us we are hastening to the end of time, and call upon us to despatch our work.

If we consider time to be the measure of motion, however, it may seem to have three stations; past, present, and future; the first and last of these are not: (one is not now, and thp other is not yet.) That which you call present, is not now the same it was, before you began to call it so in this line; when you sound that word present or the monosyllable 720te7, the present and the now is past. If we consider eternity into that time never entered, eternity is not an everlasting flux of time; but time is a short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it is, though time had never been. If we consider not eternity, but perpetuity, which shall outlive time, and be when time shall be no more, what a minute is the life of man to that! How soon must it end 1

Every word we speak, is formed of that breath whereby we live! and we may not live to pronounce another sentence, but the lamp of life may be extinguished and blown out by a sudden blast. Every thing we do carries away some sands of our little glass of time; and how few may remain? or hoi soon may the glass be broken? Our souls are ii our bodieS) as a little air enclosed in a thin bubble how easily is that broken, and where are we? Hoi many who are now alive, in health nd vigour, whc deliberate on their meat and drink, and are curioui of air and exercise, to maintain themselves in health, and please themselves with the dream of years to come, shall never see another new-year’s day? It may be, not another month, or week, or morrow! Many have promised themselves great things on the marrow, but died before night: let nie not say 1 shall not die this night, when I may this hour; and it is but once for all, there is no amending an ill death by another trial. When I lie down to sleepi I hope to rise stronger and fresher, and fitter foi work; but Lknow withal I may rise no more. And may not my name be on the roll of those who shall next be called, at least some time this year? Let me not then neglect or foolishly delay my principal business, to provide against a change which is inevitable, but the time of it altogether doubtfuL Ought not my first and chiefest care to be employed to make my peace with God, (he alontf can be my happiness; to his final judgment I’ am hastening; his favour alone can give me support and joy in a dying hour; to his mere I must trust, when I leave this world, and can have no advantage more by any thing in it,) that he may mercifully receive my soul at death, and be my everlasting portion? Do I know my life is thus vain and transient, and shall I not seriously improve it to such a purpose? Shall these thoughts leave no impression upon me? Do

I breathe continually in this element of vanity, and yet forget where I am, and remain insensible of so near a change? Shall these thoughts pass away as a vanishing cloud, and distil no softening drops on my soul? Shall the image of death, which meets me every where, be only like an appearing ghost or phantasm, that startles and scares a little, but is presently gone, and no more considered! Oh! let me now remember to make God my friend, and secure an interest in his eternal mercy while the day lasts; yea, while my reason and understanding arc tree, and not disturbed and clouded by fear and pain, and the disorders of the body, as commonly they are in sickness, if God should vouchsafe me that warning; which yet I may not promise of myself to have, for I may be cut off by a sudden stroke before the end of this year I now begin.’’

And how great and necessary work have I to do in a short and so uncertain a portion of time! Endless joy or misery will be the consequence of spending this present time. My ignorant soul must be instructed, my carnal heart renewed, many false opinions roust be unlearned, and sinful customs changed, and powerful lusts mortified, and strong temptiitions overcome, and many graces be obtained, exercised, strengthened, and preserved, to please, and serve, and glorify, a holy, omnipresent God, my sovereign; and express the thankfulness of my heart and life to Christ my Saviour; and is all this nothing? Is not all my little hasty time too little for such a work? to prepare for a safe and comfortable death, in order to a blessed eternity?