DISCOURSE II.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.

2 COR. V. 17.

Old things are paffed away; behold, all things are

TH

become new.

and the DISC.

HE departure of the old year, entrance of a new one, cannot but suggest many useful and very important reflections to a thinking man. I will beg leave to offer fome few to your minds, exactly as they have arisen in mine.

The departure of the old year may, I think, fitly be compared to the death of an old friend; and our behaviour in one cafe regulated by that which generally obtains in the other.

II.

1. When

DISC.

11.

1. When we have loft a friend, our firft care naturally is, to fee that he be decently interred; to follow him, mourning, to the grave; to let his funeral remind us of our own; and to erect a monument to his memory.

The past year is, to all intents and purposes, loft to us, and numbered among the dead. It is gone to join the multitude of years that have died before it. They arife from their feats in the repofitories of the dead, to receive it among them; it is now become like one of them; and all that hurry and bustle of business and pleasure, which distinguished and animated it, have funk into filence and oblivion. It will return no more upon the earth, and the scenes that were acted in it are closed for ever. It has lived, however, and we have enjoyed it; let us pay it the honours due to the deceased, and drop a tear over it's tomb. We cannot take a final leave of any thing, to which we have been accustomed, without a fentiment

of concern.

Objects,

otherwife of the

moft

II.

most indifferent nature, claim this, and DISC. they never fail of obtaining it, at the hour of parting. The idea of the last is always a melancholy idea; and it is fo, perhaps, for this among other reasons, because, whatever be the immediate fubject, an application is presently made to ourselves. Thus, in the cafe before us, it is recollected-and let it be recollected-it is good for us to recollect it— that what has happened to the year, muft happen to us. On each of us a day muft dawn, which is to be our laft. When we shall have buried a few more years, we must ourselves be buried; our friends fhall weep at our funeral; and what we have been, and what we have done, will live only in their remembrance. The reflection is forrowful; but it is juft, and falutary; equally vain and imprudent would be the thought of putting it away from us. Meanwhile, let us caft our eyes back on that portion of time which is come to it's conclufion, and fee whether the good thoughts that have occurred to our minds, the good words that have been uttered, and the good deeds that

have

DISC. have been performed by us, will not furnish

II.

materials, with which we may erect a lasting monument to the memory of the departed year.

2. When a friend is dead and buried, we take a penfive kind of pleasure in going over again and again the hours we formerly paffed with him, either in profperity, or adverfity. Let us pursue the fame courfe; it may be done to great advantage, in this inftance. The grand secret of a religious life is, to "fet God always before us;" to live under a constant sense of his Providence ; to obferve and study his difpenfations towards us, that they may produce their proper effects, and draw forth fuitable returns from us. Too often we fuffer them to glide unheeded by us, and never afterwards think of recalling them to confideration! It were well if we kept a diary of our lives, for this purpose, if we "fo numbered our days, "that we might apply our hearts unto wif"dom." But certainly, no year should be permitted to expire, without giving occafion

to

II.

to a retrospect. The principal events that DISC, have befallen us in it fhould be recollected, and the requifite improvements be raised from them severally, by meditation. What prefervations from dangers fpiritual or temporal have been vouchfafed; what new bleffings granted, or old ones continued, to me and mine; to my friends, my neighbours, my church, my country; and how have I expreffed, in word and in deed, my gratitude and thankfulness for them? With what loffes, or croffes, what calamities, or fickneffes, have we been vifited; and have fuch vifitations rendered us more penitent, more diligent, devout, and holy, more humble, and more charitable? If the light of heaven hath fhined on our tabernacle, and we have enjoyed the hours in health and happiness, let us enjoy them over again in the remembrance: if we have lived under a dark and ftormy fky, and affliction has been our lot, let us confider that so much of that affliction is gone, and the less there is of it to come. But whatever may be gone, or to come, all is from God, who fends it

not