[Many since the last year have been cut off by death. What a mercy should we esteem it that ive have been spared ! How dreadful must our state have now been if we had been taken unprepared ! We should have been irrevocably doomed to dwell with the fallen angels ; nor should we ever have heard one more offer of mercy from our offended God. Let us then bless and adore our Lord for this distinguishing favour ; and let his love constrain us to turn unto him with our whole hearts0.]
2. How earnest should we be in improving the present moment !
[Many are dead who lately seemed as likely to live as ourselves : but, when their time was come, they could not resist the stroke of death ; nor can any who are now alive, tell how long a respite shall be granted them. It is probable that many of us will be gone before the expiration of this yearp ; and whenever the fixed period shall arrive, all intercessions will be in vain. Let us then redeem the time with all earnestness and zeal, and accomplish the great work, before the night cometh to terminate our labours.]
0 2 Pet. i. 5 — 8. p Perhaps one in thirty or forty.
Lukexiii. 15, 16. The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him aivay to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath-day ?
THE command to sanctify the Sabbath was given to man in Paradise, and was perpetuated to all gene- rations when it was engraven on stones by God himself, together with the other precepts of the law. But the sanctification of that day consists, not in a mere abstinence from bodily labour, but in a suspen- sion of all temporal cares, and an application of soul to spiritual duties. This appears from the conduct of our Lord himself: he never was more active than on the Sabbath-day ; and when censured by super- stitious hypocrites, he vindicated himself by shewing that works of necessity and mercy were perfectly