The argument used to enforce the practice of this duty is, "because the days are evil." Time, in itself, properly speaking, is neither good nor evil; but in regard to the moral state of mankind may be so called. The days here primarily intended by the apostle, denominated _evil_, were those of his own time, in which he himself and his contemporaries lived, and which abounded with trouble and danger, by reason of the opposition made by unbelieving Jews and Gentiles against Christianity. But all our days, as well as those, may be called evil, because of the prevalence of sin, Satanic delusion, and hostility of the ungodly against real religion. Many persons can adopt the language of the patriarch Jacob, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been." Job gives a similar testimony, "Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of evil."
The whole argument runs thus: seeing that you cannot enjoy true quiet and substantial comfort in this terrestrial abode, and are in danger of being quickly deprived of all opportunity of getting and doing good, fail not to improve the present time to the best advantage, in reference to the future state, that you may secure for yourselves a happy and glorious eternity.
[24] Barington's Dissertations, &c, p. 82.
[25] An eminent chemist and philosopher, Dr. Priestley, has very properly observed, that it seems plain that Moses considered the whole terraqueous globe as being created in a _fluid_ state, the earthly and other particles of matter being mingled with the water. The present form of the earth demonstrates the truth of the Mosaic account, for it is well known, that, if a soft or elastic globular body be rapidly whirled round on its axis, the parts at the poles will be flattened, and the parts on the equator, midway between the north and the south poles will be raised up. This is precisely the shape of our earth; it has the figure of an _oblate spheroid_, a figure pretty much resembling the shape of an _orange_. It has been demonstrated by admeasurement, that the earth is flatted at the poles, and raised at the equator. This was first conjectured by Sir Isaac Newton, and afterwards confirmed by M. Cassini, and others, who measured several degrees of latitude at the equator and near the north pole, and found that the difference perfectly justified Sir Isaac Newton's conjecture, and consequently confirmed the Mosaic account. The result of the experiments instituted to determine this point, proved, that the diameter of the earth at the equator is greater by more than _twenty-three_ and _a half_ miles than it is at the poles, allowing the polar diameter to be 1-334 part shorter than the _equatorial_, according to the recent admeasurements of several degrees of latitude made by Messrs. Mechain and Delambre. L'Histoire des Mathem. par M. de la Lande, tom. iv, part v, liv. vi: and Dr. Adam Clarke, on Gen. i. 10.