Deuteronomy 4:9 Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen… The great source of all human knowledge is experience and that experience which teaches us practical wisdom, and informs us of the many evils that constantly wait on life, is acquired chiefly by observation and reflection. The historian makes it his peculiar glory that, by faithfully recording the fates of kingdoms, by delineating the virtues which raised some to magnificence, and the vices which brought others gradually to destruction, he anticipates the future by a true representation of the past, and teaches men wisdom by the examples of others. But though, from the short period of human life, the narrowness of our views, and other causes, we are obliged to recur to the experience of those who went before us for almost all our knowledge; yet the few events that happen to ourselves, or that fall within the circle of our own observation, make a far more lasting impression on us, and have a much greater influence over the heart. I. First, let me exhort you, when you "ponder in the path of life," not to let the remembrance of your DISAPPOINTMENTS, whatever they might have been, "depart from your hearts." If the Sufferance of them has been grievous, let the remembrance of them be profit. able. If they have crossed your inclinations, or withheld from you fancied pleasures, let them not die away without producing their proper effect in moderating the passions and inspiring that patient fortitude which, aided by prayer, will enable us, amidst all the storms of life, to maintain a character of dignified composure, resignation, and contentment. II. Next to the disappointments of life, I wish you to reflect on the SORROWS which you might have experienced. As the land is more grateful to the mariner after his vessel has been dashed against the rocks, and he himself has struggled with the waves of life, so is the recovery of peace to those who have escaped the storms of adversity. Many are the advantages we derive from this severe monitor, if we knew how to enjoy them. She seldom fails to soften and improve the heart. III. Let me now direct your attention to a subject in which we are all equally interested — I mean "THE HOUSE OF MOURNING" AND THE CHAMBERS OF DEATH. Here also let us endeavour to learn what lessons experience would teach us. It is not in the giddy and fantastic scenes of pleasure that the mind improves in wisdom or in virtue; these, for the most part, are acquired by habits of reflection, and by taking such views of human affairs as dispose the soul to thought and meditation. For this cause the "house of mourning" is a house replete with instruction, and is on that account wisely preferred to the "house of feasting." It is there that our religious principles acquire an energy not to be derived perhaps from any other source. It is there that those truths which were announced to us as glad tidings from heaven, and those duties which are founded on reason and contemplation, are strengthened and improved by the softest and most powerful emotions of the heart. In these melancholy moments we feel our own weakness and see the vanities of life. Temptations to guilt and misery no longer court us under the delusive forms of pleasure, and sin appears in all its native deformity. We confess the vice and folly of every mean pursuit, and the mind flees to the religion of Christ for comfort and support. (J. Hewlett, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; |
    |