SERMON II.

A WISE ESTIMATE OF TIME A HEAVEN-TAUGHT LESSON.

PSALM Xc. 12.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

THIS is a prayer the propriety of which none will dispute, who at all reflect on the brevity of human life, the uncertainty of all its enjoyments, and the certainty of death, and after death the judgment. May it please the Lord to fulfil the petition of it upon the hearts and consciences of all here present at this time! May we be disposed to sober thought and composed reflection. May we so look through present objects, as to represent to ourselves those awful scenes of a death-bed and a judgment as real and present before us; and, under the influence of these considerations, may we form a right estimate of ourselves and our real state; and so number those few days we have yet to live, as to view them just passing away, and apply our hearts unto heavenly wisdom.

I would willingly bring the great subjects of the Gospel to our view under these awful circumstances. If Gospel faith and holiness

be derided, it is because perhaps the scorners are in full health and vigour of body: because death seems to them as it were at a prodigious distance, therefore these subjects are viewed superficially, and gain not their approbation, for they are not allowed a fair examination of their necessity and importance.

In a congregation of this magnitude, I have several different sorts of persons to address on the subject, and I could wish we all considered the things I have to speak of with a full view of death near at hand. If death be kept out of sight, they cannot be weighed as they deserve. But let each man remember that he is himself near death, and he will find that to be reasonable and just which in his careless state he deems to be whimsical and absurd.

The days must be numbered as short, and the man should stand as on the brink of a precipice, ready to take a long leap into the world unseen: then there is hope his very heart may be struck, and the true wisdom, the care of the soul, may deeply engage his understanding and affections. But if the days be numbered as long; if the young man looks forward to many delightful years of worldly pleasure. as certain, and the old man thinks that at least he may reckon upon another year or two of life, Satan's charm then succeeds; the heart is at his service: he will allow indeed the lipst of his vassal to utter some few serious expressions; but the affections shall remain the cap

tives of depraved sense and a vitiated imagination.

Ye gay and thoughtless ones of either sex, ye whose very life is in pleasure and dissipation, what think you of a death-bed-the passingbell-the coffin-and the grave? Have I startled you? Do your hearts beat with fear and terror? Does the colour forsake your cheeks? and are you at this moment so taken up with the frightful images which the words I uttered suggested to you, that you are obliged to be grave a moment whether you will or not? O may the impression prove not the transient sensation of the animal spirits, but the abiding and salutary conviction of the heart, productive of a heaven-born repentance! Consider, fellow-creatures: these scenes would not be so terrible to you, did conscience bring in a verdict in your favour. Nay, were your hearts as they should be,-reconciled to the God who made you, and loving him above all things,-the things which I have mentioned would convey to you no terrible ideas; they would rather afford pleasure to you for what dutiful child, who has for years been absent from his tender parent, does not long to return home to his kind embraces? So long the real children of God to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Surely, then, if you cannot bear to think of death, you cannot be the loving children of God. Good children have a pleasure in seeing their parent. You rather flee his presence, and

would fain avoid him as an enemy. Like Adam fallen, you would gladly hide yourselves from the thought of God's approach, in the garden of sensual delights: for what means your flight from the thought of death, but that you hate to meet God as a Judge?

Or will you say, your fear of death arises. from your unwillingness to part with the joys of sense, and your agreeable connections here? Even this way your heart condemns you; for what connections would be so agreeable as those with God and just men made perfect, were God indeed your Father, and were you fitly disposed for communion with him and his saints? You love father and mother, or the world, and the things of the world, more than Jesus Christ; and therefore you cannot, as he says, be his disciples. I would hope some of you are struck with serious concern; that some, perhaps, who never did it heartily before, are praying, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Is it so? Then indeed there is hope. A Saviour, mighty in power and gracious in pity, stretches out his arms to receive you. Why will you resist his calls? Here is his blood to purge you from sin, his love to melt you, his Spirit to sanctify you, his grace to renew your fallen nature, and implant new affections in you. Only desire him, look to him, flee to him for refuge; He is the only hope of sinners; receive him with your hearts as your Saviour;

throw yourselves into his arms to do with you as he will, as poor, ruined, helpless souls; and he will make you meet for himself, and, disarming death of his sting, convert him into a friend.

But are you inclined to defer this most important business of ensuring reconciliation for some time, desirous of still enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season? Look forward, then, to death. You may possess the means of gratification only some few years-perhaps not a day. Death may be just at hand. Suppose it were so. Could you then reflect with pleasure on your mirth and jollity, your gaiety and revelling? Could you then say these things were at all serviceable to comfort you on your bed in your sickness? Will it then be a satisfaction to say, I have ever been a lover of pleasure more than of God? Or if your character has been that of a lover of money, rather than a lover of pleasure, will it be then a pleasing reflection to you to think, I spent much more thought on getting gain, than on the concerns of my soul? Consider how little will it then avail you to have been successful in business, when you are going "poor and naked" to appear in the world of spirits, eternally dissolved from all your connections with this. Think of this, O ye whose hearts are so taken up with the things of this life, that you never find time to ask yourselves the question in good earnest, Am I walking in the