But truth does not always operate in proportion to its reception. What has been always known, and very often said, as it impresses the mind with no new images, excites no attention, and is suffered to lie unheeded in the memory. Truth, possest without the labour of investigation, like many of the general conveniences of life, loses its estimation by its easiness of access; nor is it always sufficiently remembered, that the most valuable things are those which are most plentifully bestowed.

To consider the shortness, or misery, of life, is not an employment to which the mind recurs for solace or diversion; or to which it is invited by any hope of immediate delight. It is one of those intellectual medicines, of which the nauseous essence often obstructs the benefit, and which the fastidiousness of nature prompts us to refuse. But we are told by Solomon, that there is “a time not only to laugh,” but “a time to weep”;2 and that it is good sometimes “to enter into the house of mourning.”3 Many things which are not pleasant may be salutary; and among them is the just estimate of human life, which may be made by all with advantage, though by few, very few, with delight. As it is the business of a traveller to view the way before him, whatever dangers may threaten, or difficulties obstruct him, and however void may be the prospect of elegance or pleasure; it is our duty, in the pilgrimage of life, to proceed with our eyes open, and to see our state; not as hope or fancy may delineate it, but as it has been in reality appointed by divine Providence. From errours, to which, after most diligent examination, the frailty of our understandings may sometimes expose us, we may reasonably hope, that he, who knows whereof we are made, will suffer no irremediable evil to follow; but it would be unreasonable to expect, that the same indulgence shall be extended to voluntary ignorance;4 or, that we shall not suffer by those delusions to which we resign ourselves by idleness or choice.

Nothing but daily experience could make it credible, that we should see the daily descent into the grave of those whom we love or fear, admire or detest; that we should see one generation past, and another passing, see possessions daily changing their owners, and the world, at very short intervals, altering its appearance, and yet should want to be reminded that life is short; or that we should, wherever we turn our eyes, find misfortune and distress, and have our ears daily filled with the lamentations of misery; that we should often feel pain and sickness, disappointments and privations, and yet, at every respiration of momentary ease, or gleam of fugitive and uncertain joy, be elated beyond the true sense of our condition, and need the voice of salutary admonition, to make us remember that life is miserable.

But since the mind is always of itself shrinking from disagreeable images, it is sometimes necessary to recal them; and it may contribute to the repression of many unreasonable desires, and the prevention of many faults and follies, if we frequently, and attentively consider, First, “that man born of a woman is of few days.” And, Secondly, “that man born of a woman is full of trouble.” As this changeable and uncertain life5 is only the passage to an immutable state, and endless duration of happiness or misery; it ought never to be absent from our thoughts, that “man born of a woman is of few days.”

The business of life is to work out our salvation; and the days are few, in which provision must be made for eternity. We all stand upon the brink of the grave; of that state, in which there is no repentance. He, whose life is extended to its utmost natural boundaries, can live but a little while; and that he shall be one of those, who are comparatively said, to live long, no man can tell. Our days are not only few, but uncertain. The utmost that can be hoped, is little; and of that little, the greater part is denied to the majority of mankind.

Our time is short, and our work is great; it is therefore, with the kindest earnestness, enjoined by the Apostle, that we use all diligence to make our “calling and election sure.”6 But to an impartial surveyor of the ways of men, will it appear that the Apostle’s summons has been heard or regarded? Let the most candid and charitable observer take cognizance of the general practice of the world; and what can be discovered but gay thoughtlessness, or sordid industry? It seems that to secure their calling and election is the care of few. Of the greater part it may be said, that God is not in their thoughts. One forgets him in his business, another in his amusements; one in eager enjoyment of today, another in solicitous contrivance for tomorrow. Some die amidst the gratifications of luxury, and some in the tumults of contests undecided, and purposes uncompleated. Warnings are multiplied, but without notice. “Wisdom crieth in the streets,”7 but is rarely heard.

Among those that live thus wholly occupied by present things, there are some, in whom all sense of religion seems extinct or dormant; who acquiesce in their own modes of life, and never look forward into futurity, but gratify themselves within their own accustomed circle of amusements, or limit their thoughts by the attainment of their present pursuit; and, without suffering themselves to be interrupted by the unwelcome thoughts of death and judgement, congratulate themselves on their prudence or felicity, and rest satisfied with what the world can afford them; not that they doubt, but forget, a future state; not that they disbelieve their own immortality, but that they never consider it.

To these men it is surely proper to represent the shortness of life, and to remind them that human acquisitions and enjoyments are of few days; and that, whatever value may be assigned them by perverted opinions, they certainly want durability; that the fabrick of terrestrial happiness has no foundation that can long support it; that every hour, however enlivened by gaiety, or dignified by splendour, is a part subducted from the sum of life; that age advances alike upon the negligent and anxious; and that every moment of delight makes delight the shorter.8

If reason forbids us to fix our hearts upon things which we are not certain of retaining, we violate a prohibition still stronger, when we suffer ourselves to place our happiness in that which must certainly be lost; yet such is all that this world affords us. Pleasures and honours must quickly perish, because life itself must soon be at an end.

But if it be folly to delight in advantages of uncertain tenure and short continuance, how great is the folly of preferring them to permanent and perpetual good! The man whose whole attention converges to this world, even if we suppose all his attempts prosperous, and all his wishes granted, gains only empty pleasure,9 which he cannot keep, at the cost of eternal happiness, which, if now neglected, he can never gain.

Let such men therefore seriously reflect, that “man born of a woman is of few days, that he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”1

Others there are on whom the interests of life have very strong hold, who relax their thoughts by pleasure, or enchain them by attention to wealth or power; and yet feel, with forcible conviction, the importance of futurity; in whose breasts pious intentions are often budding, though they are quickly nipped by secular desires. Such men suffer frequent disturbance from the remonstrances of reason, and the reproaches of conscience, and do not set reason, or conscience, at defiance, but endeavour to pacify them with assuasive2 promises of repentance and amendment. They know that their present state is dangerous, and therefore withdraw from it to a fancied futurity, in which whatever is crooked is to be made straight; in which temptations are to be rejected, and passions to be conquered; in which wisdom and piety are to regulate the day; in which every hour shall have its proper duty. The morning shall awake beneficence, and the evening still the soul in gratitude and devotion.

Purposes like these are often formed, and often forgotten. When remorse and solitude press hard upon the mind, they afford a temporary refuge, which, like other shelters from a storm, is forsaken, when the calm returns. The design of amendment is never dismissed, but it rests in the bosom without effect. The time convenient for so great a change of conduct is not yet come. There are hindrances which another year will remove; there are helps which some near event will supply. Day rises after day, and one year follows another, and produces nothing, but resolutions without effect, and self-reproach without reformation. The time destined for a new life lapses in silence; another time is fixed, and another lapses; but the same train of delusion still continues. He that sees his danger, doubts not his power of escaping it; and though he has deceived himself a thousand times, loses little of his own confidence. The indignation excited by the past will, he thinks, secure him from any future failure. He retires to confirm his thoughts by meditation, and feels sentiments of piety powerful within him. He ventures again into the stream of life, and finds himself again carried away by the current.

That to such men, the sense of their danger may not be useless; that they may no longer trifle with their own conviction; it is necessary to remind them, that “man is of few days”; that the life allotted to human beings is short; and while they stand still in idle suspence, is growing always shorter; that as this little time is spent well or ill, their whole future existence will be happy or miserable; that he who begins the great work of his salvation early, has employment adequate to all his powers; and that he who has delayed it, can hope to accomplish it only by delaying it no longer.

To him who turns his thoughts late to the duties of religion, the time is not only shorter, but the work is greater. The more sin has prevailed, with the more difficulty is its dominion resisted. Habits are formed by repeated acts, and therefore old habits are always strongest.3 The mode of life, to which we have been accustomed, and which has entwined itself with all our thoughts and actions, is not quitted but with much difficulty. The want of those vanities, which have hitherto filled the day, is not easily supplied. Accustomed pleasures rush upon the imagination; the passions clamour for their usual gratifications; and sin, though resolutely shaken off, will struggle to regain its former hold.

To overcome all these difficulties, and overcome they must be, who can tell what time will be sufficient? To disburden the conscience, to reclaim the desires, to combat sensuality, and repress vanity, is not the work of an hour, or of a day. Many conflicts must be endured, many falls recovered, and many temptations repelled. The arts of the enemy must be counteracted, and the deceitfulness of our own hearts detected, by steady and persevering vigilance.

But how much more dreadful does the danger of delay appear, when it is considered, that not only life is every day shorter, and the work of reformation every day greater, but that strength is every day less. It is not only comparatively lessened by the long continuance of bad habits, but, if the greater part of our time be past, it is absolutely less by natural decay. In the feebleness of declining life, resolution is apt to languish; and the pains, the sickness, and consequent infirmities of age, too frequently demand so much care for the body, that very little care is, or can be, taken for the soul.

One consideration more ought to be deeply impressed upon every sluggish and dilatory lingerer. The penitential sense of sin, and the desire of a new life, when they arise in the mind, are to be received as monitions excited by our merciful Father, as calls which it is our duty to hear, and our interest to follow; that to turn our thoughts away from them, is a new sin; a sin which, often repeated, may at last be punished by dereliction. He that has been called often in vain, may be called no more; and when death comes upon him, he will recollect his broken resolves with unutterable anguish; will wish for time to do what he has hitherto neglected, and lament in vain that his days are few.

The motives to religious vigilance, and diligence in our duties, which are afforded by serious meditation on the shortness of life, will receive assistance from the view of its misery; and we are therefore to remember, Secondly, that “man born of a woman is full of trouble.”

The immediate effect of the numerous calamities, with which human nature is threatened, or afflicted, is to direct our desires to a better state. When we know, that we are on every side beset with dangers; that our condition admits many evils which cannot be remedied, but contains no good which cannot be taken from us; that pain lies in ambush behind pleasure, and misfortune behind success; that we have bodies subject to innumerable maladies, and minds liable to endless perturbations; that our knowledge often gives us pain, by presenting to our wishes such felicity as is beyond our reach, and our ignorance is such, that we often pursue, with eagerness, what either we cannot attain, or what, if we could attain it, disappoints our hopes; that in the dead calm of solitude we are insufficient to our own contentment, and that when weariness of our selves impels us to society, we are often ill received; when we perceive that small offences may raise enemies, but that great benefits will not always gain us friends; when we find ourselves courted by interest, and forsaken by ingratitude; when those who love us fall daily into the grave, and we see ourselves considered as aliens and strangers by the rising generation; it seems that we must by necessity turn our thoughts to another life, where, to those who are well prepared for their departure, there will no longer be pain or sorrow.

Of the troubles incident to mankind, every one is best acquainted with his own share. The miseries of others may attract, but his own force, his attention; and as man is not afflicted but for good purposes,4 that attention, if well regulated, will contribute to purify his heart.

We are taught in the history of Adam’s fall, that trouble was the consequence of sin, and that misery came into the world by disobedience to the divine law. Sin and vexation are still so closely united, that he who traces his troubles to their source will commonly find that his faults have produced them; and he is then to consider his sufferings as the mild admonitions of his heavenly Father,5 by which he is summoned to timely penitence. He is so far from having any reason to repine, that he may draw comfortable hopes of pardon and acceptance, and may say, with the highest reason, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.”6

It is, however, possible that trouble may, sometime, be the consequence of virtue. In times of persecution this has often happened. Confessors of the truth have been punished by exile, imprisonment, tortures, and death. The faithful have been driven from place to place, and those “have wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, of whom the world was not worthy.” Hebrews xi. 37.7

Of such violence Providence has now removed us from the danger; but it is still possible, that integrity may raise enemies, and that a resolute adherence to the right may not always be without danger. But evils of this kind bring their consolation with them; and their natural effect is, to raise the eye and thoughts to him who certainly judges right; and to excite ardent desires of that state, where innocence and happiness shall always be united.

When we have leisure from our own cares to cast our eyes about us, and behold the whole creation groaning in misery,8 we must be careful that our judgement is not presumptuous, and that our charity is not regulated by external appearances.9 We are not to consider those on whom evil falls, as the outcasts of Providence; for though temporal prosperity was promised to the Jews, as a reward of faithful adherence to the worship of God; yet under the dispensation of the gospel we are no where taught, that the good shall have any exemption from the common accidents of life, or that natural and civil evil shall not be equally shared by the righteous and the wicked.

The frequency of misfortunes, and universality of misery, may properly repress any tendency to discontent or murmur. We suffer only what is suffered by others, and often by those who are better than ourselves.

But the chief reason why we should send out our enquiries, to collect intelligence of misery, is, that we may find opportunities of doing good. Many human troubles are such as God has given man the power of alleviating. The wants of poverty may evidently be removed by the kindness of those who have more than their own use requires. Of such beneficence the time in which we live does not want examples; and surely that duty can never be neglected, to which so great rewards are so explicitly promised.

But the power of doing good is not confined to the wealthy. He that has nothing else to give, may often give advice. Wisdom likewise has benefits in its power. A wise man may reclaim the vicious, and instruct the ignorant, may quiet the throbs of sorrow, or disentangle the perplexities of conscience.1 He may compose the resentful, encourage the timorous, and animate the hopeless. In the multifarious afflictions, with which every state of human life is acquainted, there is place for a thousand offices of tenderness;2 so that he, whose desire it is to do good, can never be long without an opportunity; and every opportunity that Providence presents, let us seize with eagerness, and improve with diligence; remembering that we have no time to lose, for “man that is born of a woman is of few days.”