Let us only recollect this day twelve-months, and see how many places are empty that were then filled, and filled, too, by persons that bid as fair to see this day as ourselves. There sat one person, and there sat another, whose faces we shall never more see in this world. They are gone to their long home: gone, we hope, some of them, to a better temple, to join in nobler services, with a more perfect society, than here they did. And what reason have we to expect to live to another New-Year's Day, which they had not to expect to live to this? Are we young?-so were they. Are our circumstances in life easy and agreeable?-so perhaps, were theirs and they would have been as much surprised to be told, This year thou shalt die, as we can be now; and yet they died: and yet we, even while we are lamenting their mortality, fancy ourselves immortal; as if Death's quiver were exhausted; as if the king of terrors were grown compassionate; as if the all-devouring grave were cloyed; as if the sentence of mortality were reversed; or, at least, as if we had a particular exemption for ourselves.-Alas! if we take shelter under any of these vain imaginations, we shall find them refuges of lies; and a" Thou fool this night," may alarm and ruin us in a moment, and for ever.

If there is no better reason to be given why we may die this year, than this, perhaps we shall find no great difficulty to flatter ourselves with the hopes of escaping. That others have retired to the chambers of the grave, is no argument why we must be obliged so soon to follow them. Death did, indeed, make some breaches in our church, and in our families, the last year; but, perhaps,

now he may direct his mournful march another way, and we may hear no more of him-at least, we may not suffer from his desolating presence for many future years: we, and the little circle of our friends, may live one year secure from the alarming and distressing fears of a separation.'What little reason we have to be thus secure, will further appear when we consider,

II. Old age has enfeebled some of us.

Grey hairs are here and there upon us, though we may be so blind to our own infirmities as not to know it, or so inconsiderate as not to think of it, But there are some among us, whose wrinkled faces, trembling nerves, and decrepid walk, seem to invite Death's charitable hand to conduct them to those silent and solitary chambers, where the weary are at rest. And would it be strange, my aged and venerable friends, if, "when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out at the window are darkened, and the doors are shut in the streets, and the sound of the grinding is low, and you rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music are brought low; also when you are afraid of that which is high, and fears are in the way, and the almond-tree flourishes, and the grasshopper is a burthen, and desire fails"-I say, would it be strange, with all these symptoms of nature's approaching dissolution, if, upon some sudden shock," the silver cord should be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern, and, the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return to God who

gave it?" Would it not be more surprising, if with such a feeble, tottering tabernacle, you should weather out so many storms, as in the space of a year you must expect to meet with in such a tempestuous climate as this; where deep calleth unto deep, and billows and water-spouts are continually passing over us; and man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards?" The days of our years are threescore years and ten.' That is the scanty period to which the many centuries of an antediluvian life are dwindled; and by far the greatest part of mankind die vastly short of that. Here and there we see an instance of those, who, "by reason of strength, live to fourscore years; yet is their strength labour and sorrow:"-they are, for the most part, lost to the duties and comforts of life; their senses dull; their faculties impaired; and both body and mind reduced to such a degree of grievous weakness, as to render them the objects, not of envy, but compassion. And would it be strange, when so many pins are taken out of this earthly house of your tabernacle, and the very foundation of it is so undermined, if one winter's storm should shake and overturn it? It will be more wonderful if you should live to another year, than if you should die in this.

And here, perhaps, those in younger life may be pluming themselves upon their youth, and flattering themselves that their lease of life has many, many years to run; and are ready to say to their souls," Soul, take thine ease:" therefore I beg leave to add,

III. That sickness has weakened others.
Many of us have been afflicted with disorders

us!

which threatened immediate death, the bad effects of which we have never perfectly recovered. We have received shocks, which have shattered our frame, and left crevices in these earthly tabernacles which we never can expect will be entirely closed, as every accidental blast affects and widens them: so that, though we are but just past the morning of life, we groan under many of the weaknesses and infirmities of old age. Violent pains rack our bones; our flesh and spirits waste away under a visible decline; disorders, painful and weakening, return frequently upon us, and carry off some of our little remaining strength. It is hardly possible that our more than half-exhausted nature can long support such repeated and violent attacks: we cannot be sure that we have strength of constitution enough to outlive another struggle: we do not know but the next return of the gout, or stone, or cholic, or cough, may be fatal to us; and, from groaning under the languishings and pains of a body of death, we may be suddenly hurried, naked, into a world of spirits. And this is another reason why it may probably be said of some one or other of us, This year thou shalt die.

To this I might add,

IV. That accidents attend us all.

"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which liftethl up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because of trouble: they reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at

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their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then they are glad, because they be quiet: so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!" (Ps. cvii. 23.)-Such may with the greatest propriety be said to be "in deaths oft;" subject to many disasters, which can neither be foreseen not guarded against;-a grave ever gaping to receive them, and a thousand accidents ready to push them into it: so that when we hear them describe the dangers of a common voyage, we wonder how they escaped alive to tell of their own deliverance. But we ought not to discourage those whose duty calls them to these hazardous employments; nor ought we by any means to think that a sailor's life is the only scene of danger; there is scarcely any profession but has difficulties and dangers peculiar to itself; nor is there any moment of our lives so effectually guarded that death cannot surprise us. Some are, undoubtedly, more in danger than others; but we are all of us so much exposed to the innumerable evils that encompass us about, that our lives are a constant miracle. To consider the preservations we experience in every journey we take, in every night we sleep, in every meal we make : to consider on what inconsiderable niceties our life depends, and how easily the most imperceptible irregularity might interrupt the necessary circulation, and throw us into instantaneous and strangling convulsions: all these things considered with the seriousness that the importance of them