HI. larity; when our life seems stationary, SERMON and nothing occurs to warn us of any approaching change, the religious sentiments of dependence are apt to be forgotten. The great revolutions of time, when they come round in their stated order, have a tendency to force some impressions of piety even on the most unthinking minds. They both mark our existence on earth to be advancing towards its close, and exhibit our condition as continually changing; while each returning year brings along with it new events, and at the same time carries us forwards to the conclusion of all. We cannot, on such occasions, avoid perceiving, that their is a Supreme Being, who holds in his hands the line of our existence, and measures out to each of us our allotted portion of that line. tain limit, we know that it Beyond a cercannot be ex tended; and long before it reach that limit, it may be cut asunder by an invisible hand, which is stretched forth over all the inhabitants of the world. Then naturally arises the ejaculation of the text, My times, O God, are in thy hand. " My fate depends pends on thee. The duration of my life, and all the events which in fu-. "ture days are to fill it, are entirely at thy disposal."-Let us now, when we have just seen one year close, and another begin, meditate seriously on this sentiment. Let us consider what is implied in our times being in the hand of God; and to what improvement this meditation leads. THE text evidently implies, first, that our times are not in. our own hand; that, as our continuance in life depends not on ourselves, so the events which are to happen while life remains, are unknown to us, and not under our own direction. Of this we may behold many a proof when we look back on the transactions of the year which is just finished. Recollection will readily present to us a busy period, filled up with a mixture of business and amusement, of anxieties and cares, of joys and sorrows. We have talked, perhaps, and acted much. We have formed many a plan; in public or in private life, we have been engaged III. gaged in a variety of pursuits. Let me SERMON now ask, how small a proportion of all that has happened could have been foreseen, or foretold by us? How many things have occurred, of which we had no expectation; some, perhaps, that have succeeded beyond our hopes; many, many, also, that have befallen us contrary to our wish? How often were each of us admonished that there are secret wheels, which, unseen by us, bring about the revolutions of human affairs; and that, while man was devising his way, Providence was directing the event? That scene is now closed. The tale of that year has been told. We look forward to the year which is beginning; and what do we behold there ?-All, my brethren, is a blank to our view: A dark unknown presents itself, We are entering on an untried, undiscovered country, where, as each succeeding month comes forward, new scenes may open; new objects may engage our attention; changes at home or abroad, in public or in private affairs, may alter the whole state of our fortune. New connections may III. SERMON may be at hand to be formed, or old ones just about to be dissolved; perhaps, we may have little more to do with this world, or with any of its connections; we may be standing on the verge of time and life, and on the point of passing into a new region of existence. In short the prospect before us is full of awful uncertainty. Life and death, prosperity and adversity, health and sickness, joy and trouble, lie in one undistinguishable mass, where our eye can descry nothing through the obscurity that wraps them up. While it is thus certain that our times are not at our own disposal, we are taught by the text, that they are in the band of God. This may be considered in two views. of God, as a Our times are in the hand supreme Disposer of events, They are in the hand of God, as a Guardian and a Father. Our times, I say, are in the band of God as a supreme irresistible Ruler. All that is to happen to us in this and the succeeding years of our life,-if any succeeding ceeding years we shall be allowed to see,- SERMON has been foreknown and arranged by God. The first view under which human affairs present themselves to us, is that of confused and irregular succession. The events of the world seem thrown together by chance, like the billows of the sea, tumbling and tossing over each other, without rule or order. All that is apparent to us, is the fluctuation of human caprice, and the operation of human passions. We see the strife of ambition, and the efforts of stratagem, labouring to accomplish their several purposes among the societies of men. But it is no more than the surface, the out- He |
