The Old Baptist Savors More New Year's Insights from Jay of Bath

In his Evening Exercises meditation for January 1, William Jay, the long-time pastor of the non-conformist Argyle Chapel in the English resort town of Bath, offers the following counsel for all of us who seek to improve our futures:

"With regard then to the future, in every period, relation, and condition of life, some things may be reckoned upon. Thus, in the natural world, we know that the seasons will come round in their time and place with little variation. 'While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.'

We also know that the general state and usages of society will be what they ever have been. 'The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.'

We are sure that no creature possessions and enjoyments will fully meet our hopes and wishes. They never have produced satisfaction. They were never designed to do it; they are incapable of doing it.

We may certainly expect that trials of one kind or another will be our lot. They grow out of our very state and nature. 'Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.'

We must be infatuated if we are not aware that all our connections here are precarious. Some may abandon us from insincerity; some may leave us from infirmity; some may be removed to a distance by events; some may be laid in the grave. Need we be informed that the desire of our eyes is mortal? That childhood and youth are vanity?

Can we be ignorant that with growing years we are to look for growing privations and weaknesses? That our senses will decay, that desire will fail, that the grasshopper will be a burden? It is the tax of age. 'The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.'

For the living know that they shall die. It is the way of all the earth; and whatever may be doubtful when we look onward, there is not a human being but can say, 'I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.' He knows also that the event cannot be far off, and may be very near.

And is this all that we are apprized of? No. We also know that God will be found the same he always has been - we know that he will always prove himself the hearer of prayers - we know that he will never leave us nor forsake us - we know that our 'shoes shall be iron and brass; and as our days, so shall our strength be' - we know that 'he will guide us with his counsel, and afterward receive us to glory.'"

Grace and peace.

The Old Baptist Savors New Year's Wisdom from Jay of Bath

William Jay (1769-1853), for sixty-two years the pastor of the non-conformist congregation of Argyle Chapel in Bath, has been hailed as the greatest preacher that English Christianity ever produced (next to Spurgeon, of course). He is perhaps best known for his twin volumes of devotional works, Morning Exercises and Evening Exercises. In the former volume, within his meditation for January 1 in which he comments upon the text of Exodus 40:2, Jay makes the following observation about improving our walk with the Lord in the year to come:

"Finally, time - this short, this uncertain, this all-important time - upon every instant of which eternity depends, will not allow of our trifling away any of its moments. Resolve therefore to redeem it. Gather up its fragments, that nothing be lost. Especially rescue it from needless sleep; and if you have hitherto accustomed yourself to the shameful indulgence of lying late in bed, begin the new year with the habit of early rising; by which you will promote your health and improvement of every kind, and live much longer than others in the same number of days, and say, with David, 'My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.'"

How appropriate these comments are for us who are inhabitants of a notoriously lazy age. May we honor God through a scrupulous stewardship of the time that God allots us in 2007!

Grace and peace.