by the Year passed and the Covenant of Grace or the Gospel state by the New Year then begun and that by the Sound of Trumpets was prefigured the future Preaching of the Gospel according to that of the Apostle Their sound went forth unto all the Earth and their words unto the end of the World And so the Feast of Trumpets is abrogated by the Preaching of the Gospel if that were typically signified by it The Publication of the Gospel is the joyful sound Psal 89.15 And Ministers are to lift up their Voice like a Trumpet Isai 58.1 the discharge of their Office as Watchmen is express'd by setting the Trumpet to their mouth Hos 8.1 Ezek. 33. When the Jews shall be converted to the Faith of Christ it is said in that day the great Trumpet shall be blown and they shall come who are ready to perish Isa 27. ult 'T was the Office of the Priests to sound these Trumpets Numb 10.8 The publick Dispensation of the Gospel is committed to Ministers set a-part for that Work as the Sons of Aaron for theirs We read but of two Trumpets at first for Eleazar and Ithamar the two Sons of Aaron Numb 3.4 But David added many Musical Instruments And in Solomon's time at the Dedication of the Temple we read of One hundred and twenty Priests who sounded with Trumpets 2 Chron. 5.12 Without supposing any Type here in a strict and proper sense we may yet farther consider the Parallel and observe how the Joy and Gratitude these Trumpets did excite is exceeded by that greater Rejoycing promised and foretold by the Prophets when the glad Tidings of the Gospel of Salvation by the Messiah should be publish'd to the World Isa 54.1 Luk. 2.11 Gal. 4.27 Which hath been in part accomplish'd and will be more compleat in that Kingdom of Peace and Purity which Christ will establish upon Earth toward the end of the World And shall be finally perfected at the end of Time when Days and Years and Time thus measured shall be no more When the Messiah our B. Saviour having finished his Mediatory Undertaking as to what concerns Earth shall come again from Heaven with the Trump of God to raise the Dead and summon all the World to their final Judgment Then shall he deliver up the Kingdom to his Father And the Faithful shall enter into the Joy of their Lord and be forever with him There is a Tradition among the Jews mention'd by Maimonides Canones de Poenit. cap. 3. can 5. That on the First Day of the New Year God enters into Judgment for the Sins of the Year and Life past That every one's Faults are weighed against his good Works He that is found Righteous is sealed unto Life And he that is found Wicked is sealed unto Death And 't is a general Custom that hath obtained among the Jews for the ten first Days of the New Year to rise out of their Beds in the Night and to continue in their Synagogues praying and worshipping until break of Day The superstitious and ridiculous Ceremonies of the Vid. Ceremon Cout parmi les Juifs d'aujourdhay par 2. c. 5. modern Jews on this Day I shall not repeat However vain and groundless superstitious and absurd many of their Customs and Practices are on this Day Yet this blind Devotion of the Jews may justly shame and condemn the Christians of our Age Who commonly spend the Beginnings of every Year worse than any other parts of them and instead of any solemn Retirement for Prayer and Meditation which might assist them to number their Days and prepare for Eternity instead I say of such seasonable Exercises how do vain and hurtful Sports and Pastimes or trifling and unedifying Mirth and fruitless Conversations consume the greatest part of the Days and Nights too of the Beginning of the Year And thus when the first fruits of the Year are offer'd up to Sin and Vanity 't is no wonder if the following parts of it are employ'd to no better purpose without any due concern for the Soul and an Everlasting State To endeavour some Remedy to these Disorders and give some Assistance to such as desire seriously to make Religion their Principal Business is the end of publishing the foregoing Reflections I most heartily beseech the God of all Grace to influence by his Holy Spirit the Conscience of every Reader that some such good Effect may be attained Having found the Practice recommended to be of some use to my self and my own Heart warmed in composing the Substance of these Papers though without any Intention at that Time of exposing them to the World 't is not unreasonable to hope That what hath been beneficial to one may be helpful to another It cannot certainly be improper to Begin the Year with God with whom we should begin every Day 'T is decorous and becoming to Dedicate our selves to Him in a more solemn manner than ordinary at such a Time Thankfully to acknowledge the Favours and Blessings we have particularly received the Year Past And to recollect the Sins we have been guilty of to confess and aggravate 'em with Humility Contrition and deep Remorse to renew our Covenant with God to repeat and fortifie our Resolutions of living better imploring his Grace to assist us in it to reflect seriously on the Mutability Frailty and Brevity of our present Life to consider the Swiftness Uncertainty Irrecoverableness and consequent Value of our Time to look forward to a Blessed or Miserable Eternity one of which we must every one share in And to confirm our Faith in the Certainty thereof considering our near Approach to such an unchangeable State To think what Improvement we should make of the Death of others especially of Relations and Friends who have lately been called home To make the Supposition in good earnest that we may follow them This Year and die before another New-Year's-Day To impress such a Thought on our Hearts and the Inferences that may naturally be deduced from it To beg of God to enable us to Redeem our Time and discharge the duty of our particular Places and prepare us for all the Events of the following Year And so effectually Teach us to number our days that we may apply our Hearts unto true Wisdom Lest we be surprized by an Vnexpected Death before the Period of another Year And lastly to pray for our Relations and Friends Families and Neighbours and our Enemies too and plead with God on the behalf of Sion and the afflicted and deformed state of the Protestant Churches To some of these and the like Purposes I hope what is here offered may be subservient if considered with Seriousness and Application after humble Invocation of the Blessing of God and the Aids of his Spirit composing our Minds and Thoughts as in his most Awful and Holy Presence I have only this to request That if Any Reader shall find any real Benefit in this kind he would so far requite my
his Body and his Life but in his Mind too so as to love and hate to chuse and neglect to delight in and abhor such things at one time as he did not before He doth not pass the same Judgment nor retain the same Affections at one time as at another How do I live as if all this were as certainly false as it is unquestionably true admire love fear trust in Man as if he were the direct Contrary to what he is and seek for Immortality upon Earth and act as if I were assured of it and were not liable to any Change though I acknowledge and know the Contrary Though the last Years Experience and the observation of every Day doth convince me of it though all History and all the Records of the Grave attest it though all Mankind in every Age have found it so though it be a manifest notorious Truth legible in the various Changes and Calamities but especially in the Dust and Ashes of all who have lived before us our Graves being often made of our Predecessors Dust and the Earth we bury in having once been living yet how little is it believed how seldom considered The Confirmation of it which one Year gives us hath little Influence on our Hearts or Lives with respect to the next We ought therefore to accustom our selves to these Thoughts before such Changes happen to which our Final Change shall e're long succeed They will be less efficacious if never admitted till our Minds are opprest and feebled by the weight of Affliction We shall then want that Vigour of Reason which should co-operate with the Remedy and which if used before-hand would help to support and stay our Minds under all subsequent Revolutions For those Considerations may be able to fix and stay our Minds under Changes that may not be sufficient to recover and raise our Spirits after they are dejected and fallen SECTION II. Of the Change in Mens Inclinations Opinions and Actions which one Year shews How observable it is in Others how much more discernable in our Selves Honour and Reputation c. how uncertainly preserved and how easily blasted WHat a discovery doth one Year make of the Mutability of Man not only of his outward Condition but of the Man himself his Temper his Practise his Inclinations his Aversions c. He abideth not at one stay every breath of wind turns him to another shape We despise to day that which we admired yesterday and to morrow hate the object of our present love We begin Friendships and cancel them on slight occasions And a mortal Enmity often succeeds to a tender Affection The very Persons who are in one year our darling Friends and possibly deserved to be so may yet be open Enemies the next and seek our Ruine Lord what is Man How deceitful and mutable the Heart of Man We know not what other Men are or will prove to be till a trial and we are equally ignorant concerning our selves till an hour of Temptation How patiently do we think we could bear Afflictions till we feel them how partial and mistaken a Judgment do we make of our Wisdom and Strength in reference to the future we counsel others to Submission and Resignation in the most difficult trials and wonder they complain so loud when we our selves despond and sink under half their Burthen and send up our more impatient murmurs to Heaven when God thinks fit to prove us by a lighter Stroke We censure and condem Others who are in an higher Station and are called to more difficult work than we when by a little Advancement and the like Temptation we discover that we are as bad as they They who were reputed Humble Temperate and Religious when they have been Exalted higher become proud sensual and ungodly Had some been told a Twelve month since what now they are and speak and act they would have made Hazael's Answer Am I a Dog that I should do this A change in the publick Affairs of the State and by that means of particular Interests or some Alteration of our own private Circumstances calling us to new Duties and exposing us to new Temptations discovers us more to our selves and to other Men than was expected and proves us to be very different from what we appeared to be Such a change for Instance as from Poverty to Riches from Sickness to Health from Obscurity to Honour from Privacy to a Publick charge c. or on the contrary Men cannot bear the weight of Temporal Happiness but Riches and Honours make us to be Other Men than before we seemed to be How weak a thing is Man that cannot carry his own Wishes without falling under them That cannot prosper in his designs without being changed in the Temper of his Mind upon every success So true is it that Man in Honour is like the Beast that perisheth and changed ordinarily for the worse as to serious Religion May we not fear that some who a year since dared not live a day in the neglect of Closet and Family Devotion do now omit it for many Days and Weeks together And that some who once were careful to improve the whole Sabbath to religious purposes now place the whole of their Religion in attending the publiek Worship and think it enough not for that Day only but for the whole Week Under the Afflicting Hand of God or some Apprehensions of an approaching change or sense of guilt upon great Transgressions the Convictions of Sin are lively Conscience is sensible and awake Affections warm Resolutions strong c. But alas how soon doth the case alter our Spirits cool our Zeal abates our good Purposes untwist and die and come to nothing By degrees we return to Folly and boldly venture on that Sin we lately trembled at Through the want of continued smart Afflictions or of a serious awakning Ministry and friendly faithful Admonition or through the Temptations of vain Company and the remaining power of fleshly Lusts So that we falsifie our most sacred Promises and Resolutions violate our holy Vows cancel the Bonds of God upon us suffer the Devil to re-enter and prevail again to take possession of our Hearts and yield our selves an easie prey to his Temptations till our latter end be worse than our Beginning Oh what a Change doth one year let us see in Persons as well as Things in our selves as well as other Men And as it is with Man himself so with every thing that he values himself upon or for which he is esteemed by others and even his Esteem and Reputation is also changeable and uncertain Not to Instance in Riches but in what is nobler Learning and the Improvements of the Mind by Study how soon may the violence of a Disease disturb or stupifie the Brain to that degree as shall reduce the greatest Scholar to the pitied Condition of a Fool or Bedlam And where is his Reputation and Renown in such a Case But much less than that
be by the damned Spirits Oh that I might now feel more of this Heavenly Life begun and carried on in my Soul by a farther Participation of his Holy Image and Conformity to his Will by more vital Effects of his indwelling Spirit in my Soul forming it to be a Temple to himself for his own Delightful Residence that forgetting that which I have received I may still be Coveting and desirous of more forgetting what I have attain'd I may press on with an Holy Eagerness and Fervency towards the Mark When I seriously examine my own Heart had I nothing else to prove the Weakness of my Grace and the sinful Remainders of Unbelief but the low Desires and few Comfortable Thoughts the seldom joyful Prospect of this Blessed State how sad an Evidence were it of my low Attainments that I breath with no more Impatience after that Blessed Holy Rest in the Injoyment of God and Christ and labour no more in preparing for it When we profess to believe that all the Desires of our Souls shall be fix'd on Him and filled with Him as our Infinite and Supreme Good and all the Expectations of Faith and Hope swallowed up in Endless Admiration Gratitude and Joy being fully satisfied and at Rest in the Presence and Vision of God without the least Inclination or Desire of Change And by Consequence There will be no need of Novelty as now to a give a Relish to our Happiness All Happiness in this World is by comparing a Man's present Condition with his past or with that of some Inferiours But the Intrinsick Good Felicity and Joy of Heaven will need no such Foil to set it off no such Comparison to make it prized The Blessed Spirits will never lose the lively Sense of that low and miserable Condition from which they were raised to so great a Glory and so will ever equally rejoyce in the Happiness of their Translation and Wonderful Change And what was at first delightful will for Ever be so and not disdain'd or lessen'd by a Continuance as it happens in this World from the Emptiness Shallowness and Vanity of the Creature An Affectation of Variety and Desire of Change proceeding always from a Sense of Want But Holy Souls shall never be weary of Seeing Loving and Enjoying God his Blessed Presence will afford us Undecaying and Endless Satisfacton Pleasure never to be interupted or abated and never to cease The Blessed Object is absolutely Infinite and so will be always new to a Finite Understanding and Continual Fresh Communications from his Infinite Fulness must needs make our Subjective Happiness to be always new and Eternally such Let me by such Thoughts quicken and excite my Diligent Endeavours after a greater Meetness to injoy so great a Bliss And to that end Consider whether any of those Happy Souls who have finisht their Course and obtained the Prize do now regret their utmost Diligence Patience and Perseverance during their short Abode here to secure the Blessedness of an Endless Life No no they are far from repenting the Time they spent the Trouble they were at the Care they used the Difficulties they met with the Sufferings they endured to conflct with the World and the Flesh to resist Temptation to watch over their Hearts and Words and Ways to work out their Salvation to please God and be faithful to him c. They find to their Unspeakable Comfort and Everlasting Joy that Heaven makes amends for all they could do or suffer in order to their Coming thither Yea they find that they were not Diligent and Humble and Patient and Circumspect enough That they did not love God and seek his Glory redeem their Time and improve all their Talents and Opportunities of doing and receiving Good and give up themselves intirely to prepare for Heaven to that degree they should have done They find by the Transcendency of the Blessed Recompence that it deserved infinitely more than the most Active Zealous Christian upon Earth did ever do in order to it Lord Quicken my Resolutions and Endeavours by such Thoughts as these Inspire my Sluggish Carnal Heart with Holy Light and Life and Zeal and Fervour that looking to the Things which are not seen which are Eternal I may (*) 1 Tim. 1.19 lay up a good Foundation against the Time to come and so lay hold on Eternal Life But Alas How much have I neglected the great Duty of Holy Meditation How little Skill and Experience have I in it How tastless and inspid oftentimes are my Thoughts of God! how confused and unsteady how little Pleasure or Advantage have I by Contemplating his Highest Excellencies Yet methinks could I but retain the same awakened lively Thoughts of Heaven and Eternal Life which sometimes I have had might I continually feel the Sweet and Sacred Influence as for a little Season I have sometimes felt it how little how very a Nothing would all this World be to me How comparatively weak its strongest and most alluring Snares to draw me off from God! with what an unshaken Mind could I refuse and resist ' em with what an unconcerned Indifference could I look upon all its most charming Glory Could I maintain such a Frame of Spirit as I have sometimes had for a little while in the serious Contemplation of Divine Misteries in Fervent Prayers and other Solemn Duties of Religion when the Acts of Faith were strong and lively my Heart set on fire with Love to God and Holy Breathings after Him admiring his matchless Grace to fallen Sinners and to my Soul in particular when he brought me to the very Suburbs of Heaven tho' alas how seldom by the delightful Thought of what the Blessed Spirits above enjoy in being where Christ is and beholding his Glory when I was ready to say within my self 'T is good to be here this is no other than the Gate of Heaven Oh! when shall Mortality be swallowed up of Life But when I thought at any time to fix and settle in such sweet Contemplations how quickly did my lazy backward Heart fly off how soon did the Flame decay and dye away how soon did I find my self fallen down to Earth again sunk down from the Bosom of my Lord presently forgot my self and Heaven to dwell among the Pots and embrace a Dunghill 'T was not on my own Wings O Lord that I soared so high but I hope by the Breathings of that Holy Spirit of Light and Love who bloweth when and where and how long he listeth who gave me at any time any such first Fruits of the Spirit who convinc'd me of the Certainty of the Heavenly Inheritance by a lively believing Foresight of it who made me earnestly desire the Wings of a Dove to be gone and appear before God in Sion made me Pant and Groan to be delivered and to be with God and Christ with inexpressible Desire and Joy unconceivably mixt with Sighs and Groans O my God! let not this experience be only