Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

"And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days, and years."-Gen. i. 14

THE system of the universe has two great features or elements of contrariety, which are made to subsist together in beautiful order and harmony. It is, on the one hand, a system of the most perfect stability, in which all the parts stand firm from age to age, accomplishing their daily revolutions with such undeviating exactness, that science will foretell their places for millions of years. On the other hand, it is a system of ever-circling changes, in which the days and nights, the seasons and the years, are flying round and round us, in quick

succession.

Now God might have made a universe, so as to exhibit nothing but permanence and stability; a motionless universe, in which all the parts should stand still on their centre of rest, without any variety of times or seasons. Or, adopting our present solar system, if he had introduced only two very slight modifications in the position and motions of our planet, which I will not stay to describe, the system would have been, as regards us, a system without times and seasons, and probably we should never have been aware of any motion in it. Summer, autumn, winter, spring, completing what we call a year, would be unknownwe should have no notion of a year. One side of the earth would be a perpetual day, the other a perpetual night, and uninhabitable. We should have, in fact, no distinctions of time whatever, and no measure of time, except in the successions of our thoughts and experiences. Life would stretch on, as it were, in one straight continuous road, under the same never-setting noonday sun, from the cradle to the grave. The universe would be a clock, without either hands or bell, and the wheels would roll away under their unlettered dial-plate as rapidly as now, measuring off to man the times they conceal from his knowledge. There was, doubtless, some reason, why God did not thus constitute our system, and my text discloses that reason. It tells us that God 1

VOL. XVIII.-NO. I.

desirable, so benevolent an end, he has made the sun and moon to roll on their courses, and the whole order of heavenly motions to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.

You have now just completed another of these years. How swiftly do they fly! how soon will they bear you away! Try not to close your eyes to a fact, which God has been at so much pains to impress upon you. You are now nearer, by another year, to eternity and the judgment-bar of God. If you have a strong desire of life, try not to force an opinion of your stay, against the sun and the signs of heaven. If your last year has been one of success, it has nevertheless been a year, and you are nearer by a year to your everlasting state. If your means of earthly enjoyment have been enlarged, your time of earthly enjoyment is diminished. If you have great plans yet to mature, you have one year less to do it in, and if you should expect to live as long as your hopes tempt you, the years will not take counsel of your hopes. If you are a Christian, have you had the year's growth of a Christian? If you are not, then have you lost a year! and by so much have diminished the prospect of your salvation. If you are an old man, without God, and the year has gone too quickly by, it has yet gone! the sun has not slackened his pace because he must bring you so much nearer to your end. If you are young, the Holy Spirit has given you one more year of mercy, and it may be the last! I say to you, one and all, my friends, give heed to this reckoning. The sun has returned into his circle, the great bell of time has struck! another year is gone!

2. It is another benefit of God's arrangements, in the astronomical motions and the seasons, that he may call us often to a reckoning with ourselves, and that under the most impressive influences. Were there no distribution of times and seasons, no complete periods, we should have no past times completed to think of. We could never say, as the sun goes down, and the light fades into darkness-" Another day is gone!" Or, when the year returns to its goal-" Another year is gone!" We should only slide along in a silent, stealthy motion, and time would slide as silently by in undiscriminated periods. And how should we hold ourselves to a reckoning for that which has no distinct existence in our thoughts?

But now time reels itself away in definite measures and complete circles. The sun returns to his place, and says to all that live-I have given you now another year. The conscience hears his report, and says What now have I done with this year? A kind of general instinct moves us to a reckoning with ourselves. The merchant and the banker go into account with themselves, and foot up the results of the year. The husbandman computes the yield of his harvest. Mistakes in plan, deficiencies of industry and attention, misapplications of effort, are brought into view and corrected. Now, too, the immortal nature speaks, and the claims of wisdom force themselves into view. Something within calls us to a reckoning. One more year of accountability to God is gone, and its record is sealed!

What man among us will refuse this reckoning? What minister

will neglect to ask what he has been doing in his Master's vineyardto go over the record of his doings and neglects-to thank God for his successes, and repent of his deficiencies? What Christian will shun the serious and faithful review of his conduct-his use or abuse of God's privileges-try himself by his professions-sum up his charities given and withheld-refresh himself in the review of his hours of Christian peace and enjoyment of God-and bow himself in contrition for his sins against the Holy Spirit? Now, too, is the heedless man, the impenitent worldling summoned to a pause. The voice of immortality speaks. He is one year nearer to the result of that great experiment which is called life. A year of giddiness, vanity, avarice, possibly of conscious striving against God, has finished its circle. The law of God has been over it, and His eye has followed it. Oh! to have passed a year of accountability to God, and to see and feel that he is pressing so much nearer to the confines of his immortality! What has he done? Whither is he going? Stay, immortal man! Go by thyself, and reckon with thy God! Answer for this year! Or, if thou canst not answer, bow thy head in sorrow, and cast thyself on Him who alone can answer for thee!

3. The arrangement of God in our distributions of time and season, as they impel us to a reckoning for the past, invite us to new purposes of future life. It is a fact, the causes of which I will not stay to investigate-nevertheless it is a fact, that when we will begin some new undertaking or better mode of living, we like to do it at the opening of some new period or term of experience: and God, to favor this disposition, provides for the recurrence of new periods. He does not measure time in straight lines of progress, but in circles. Every day is a complete circle-every year a larger complete circle. When, therefore, these circles return into themselves, then begins a new day or a new year-a day or a year unstained as yet, by any sin, and broken in upon as yet, by no false plans or schemes of life. Man rises in the morning, and it is the morning of a new day, inviting him to something new and better than before. And when the New Year comes, the very sound of the term is sanctified by associations of purity and goodness, and we may not rashly stain it with evil. If you are a Christian, now is the time to undertake better things and plan a holier life. This year may be your last-let it be your best-a fruitful yeara holy year. If you are yet without God in the world, such a time ought to have great power with you. Let the time past, spent in sin, suffice you. And now, this day, as Nature begins anew her circle of regenerated motion, do you begin, with it, a life of true wisdom. Many of you have long been promising that, by a certain time, you would begin a religious life. God brings out now before you the unpolluted year, and invites you to fulfil your intention. He declares, if you will receive it, the remission of sins that are past-cancels all the records of sin and pollution-and offers to begin with you anew. Shall encouragements so persuasively offered, be as heedlessly repelled? Must

the seasons and days of this coming year roll on through another circle of neglect and guilt-perhaps the last?

4. It is another moral benefit secured, by our distribution of seasons and years, that God thus teaches us, in the most impressive manner possible, the value of time. Had He left us to guess its progress, by some faint tokens or undistinguished incidents, we might have less opinion of its value. But now, we see, that He has made the whole material frame an organ of time. We inhabit a system of machinery, in which every wheel and motion, orbit and oscillation tells the hours. And this great engine of time is not less exact than it is magnificent. No second has ever been lost, since the day, when first the word of the Almighty set it in motion. Let them be, he said-for signs and for seasons, and for days and years-let them declare to every creature, in every world, the certain flight of time, and signify its sacred value. The gems he has buried in the sands of his rivers; on the gold He has piled His mountains of rock; the pearls he has hid in the depth of the sea; but Time, Time, is out on the front of all created magnificence. The first thing accomplished, and that by the highest works of grandeur and power, is the indication of time. And, in this, what does He say to us and to all intelligent creatures, in all worlds, but that Time is the most precious of His gifts.

Would that we were less insensible, my hearers, to this most impressive lesson of the Almighty! God is telling us everywhere, by signs of awful grandeur, that time is a precious thing, and that we cannot afford to lose a moment. From the heaven of heavens, where He holds his throne, he numbers to us the hours, and calls us to apply our hearts unto wisdom. And what do we? What have we done?what do we design to do? Who can think that such a world as this, is made for trifling? Cease, giddy mortal! awake thou, dreamer of indolence and self-indulgence! duty calls! heaven waits! Serious and awful results are pending-the strong enginery of heaven is driving on the hours, and there is not a moment to be lost!

5. God, in the institution of the seasons, designs to impress it upon us as a truth of practical moment, that everything must be done in its time. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun. In other words, there is an exact time fixed in the purposes of God, in which everything must be done, if done at all. If the Christian is to do anything for his Master, there is a time in which it must be done, or never. If the sinner is to repent, there is a time in which he will repent; and if he passes by that certain time, his harvest is past and his summer ended.

And God has kindly ordered the world itself, so as to impress this truth upon every man that lives. If there were no successions of day and night, or of seasons; if all things had been made to stand in a given posture, no such lesson would have been impressed. We might work and trade, might plant, sow, and harvest any and all kinds of fruits, at any and all times. The sluggard would never feel behind his time, and nothing could be out of season. But instead of such an

arrangement, God has given us day and night, and a round of everchanging seasons, and whatsoever we do needs to be done in its time. It must then be done, or never. The plants have all a time which is natural to them, and no other will answer. They grow, they blossom, they ripen, in their appointed time. The same universal clock-work, which measures our times, measures also theirs. And without observing it, we cannot even feed our bodies. If we want the light of day, we cannot have it in the night; and we go to our work, every morning, under the commandment-work while the day lasts, the night cometh when no man can work. The tradesman observes the seasons. The husbandman watches them for his life. And thus we are trained to the habitual conviction, that whatsoever we do, must be done in its time. So well is it understood, that one is deemed scarcely better than an idiot, who will undertake to do, or produce anything, after the season is past. And this impression, forced upon the outward man, is designed to serve the benefit of the spiritual; that we may never neglect our opportunities of grace and duty.

There are, alas! a great many Christians, or professed disciples who design to do much good in the world, but the time never comes for doing it. They mean, at length, to break through all their worldly snares and slay all their evil habits, but the time never comes. But if you never find the time, my brethren, for executing your good purposes, what are they worth? Need I expostulate with you concerning a folly so manifest? Were there any meaning in your good purposes, you would be ever seeking after those times and opportunities when God will assist you to do the good you intend; nor, if you sought such opportunities, could you fail to find them. But, alas! these vain resolves, these ineffectual and sluggish longings, these good purposes never fulfilled, are the most treacherous and fatal instruments of deceit you can employ. Dismiss them for ever! Do the good you meditate! Or, if you can never find the time for doing it, have the frankness to confess that your good intentions are hollow and worthless.

Let my hearers out of Christ, too, receive this lesson. There is, doubtless, a time set, in the purposes of God, when every man will turn the scale of his immortality-a time when he will come to Christ, if he comes at all. If that time is already past, no urgency of mine, or consideration of yours, will ever repair the mischief. If it is future, if the season of harvest is yet to come, how carefully does it become you to watch for it, that it may not pass unimproved. Or, it may be present. To-day may be the time. Entering here upon another religious year, the decisive hour may have here come. And which way shall the decision turn? Ask not for delay. What is to be done now, remember, must be done now, or it never will be. You cannot plant in the winter, nor gather fruit in the spring. God's times are set, and the seasons of his mercy all ordained from the beginning. There is no time of salvation but the time of God!

6. It is worthy of distinct notice, that God has so ordered our times and seasons as, at once, to keep us advised of our rapid transit, and, by

« ÎnapoiContinuă »