Therefore, we speak and say, that another year has now dawned upon us; and we would remind you, and remember, ourselves, in what words the various Scriptures of this day’s service point out its inestimable value.  “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”  So says St. Paul in the epistle of this day; and how blessed are all those amongst us who can feel that this is truly said of them!  Then, indeed, a new year’s day is a day of rejoicing; we are so much nearer that period when all care, all anxiety, all painful labour will be for ever ended.  But there is other language of a different sort, which, it may be, will suit us better.  “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.”  “Their land is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made;” which means to us, the work of our own hearts, that which our own fancies and desires have made.  “Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty.”  For in the very temple of God, his Church, all manner of profane thoughts and words and works are crowded together; the din of covetousness and worldliness is loud and constant, and will ill abide the day of his coming, who will, a second time, cast out of his temple all that is unclean.  And is there not also in us that evil heart of unbelief and disobedience which departs from the living God? are there not here those who are becoming daily hardened through the deceitfulness of sin?  How are they passing their time in the wilderness, and with what prospects when they come to the end of it?  God said, “I sware in my wrath, that they shall not enter into my rest.”  By the way that they came, by the same shall they return; they shall go back to that bondage from which they were once redeemed, and from which they will be redeemed again no more for ever.

These are some of the passages of this day’s service which speaks to us at the beginning of this new Christian year.  Let me add to all this language of warning, the language in which God, by his apostle Paul, answers every one of us, if we ask of him in sincerity of heart, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” He answers, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand:  let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying:  but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the works thereof.”  Now, I grant, that this day, of which the apostle speaks, has never yet shone so brightly, as he had hoped and imagined; clouds have, up to this hour, continually overshadowed it.  I mean, that the lives of Christians have hindered them from being the light of the world.  It has been a light pale and dim, and therefore the works of darkness have continued to abound.  But admit this, and what follows?  Is it, or can it be, anything else but a more earnest desire not to