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SERMON XXIII.

PSALMS XC. VERSE IX.

We spend our years, as it were a tale that is told.

WHEN we hear a story pleasantly set forth, in appropriate language, and with wellcontrived incidents, the mind hangs upon it eagerly, and falls from a certain heighth of enjoyment, when it is concluded: there is no sense of the passage of time; but the wit, and genius of the narrator abridges it to the duration of a moment; so it is with the years of the rich, and great; they are spent as a tale that is pleasantly told; there is no monotony in the events, no slowness

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in the succession; novelty ever refreshes the fable, and genius ever adorns it; on a sudden, the noise is all hushed, the tale is told; our years are brought to an end, and the silence of death succeeds.

I seize then with some eagerness, upon the occasion which the conclusion of the year presents, to press upon you the duty of self-examination, and to protest against that life which is past without pause, and without reflection.

It is these artificial divisions of time, which teach men to think of its rapid pace; whenever the idea of change is introduced, there comes with it that melancholy, which is the parent of virtue; the mind is carried on from one vicissitude to another, till it stops, and trembles at the last; now it is, that our thoughts are more than ordinarily 'serious; now it is that we listen to the lowly breathings of conscience, that we remember that this world is not the last scene of existence, that we catch a distant glimpse of the grave: how blest are they who hear from that conscience the voice of

praise, and see beyond that grave, the prospect of salvation.

We spend our years as a tale that is told; that is, we live so as to banish reflection; we do not enter into any serious computation of the progress we have made in godliness; we do not balance the increase of virtue, against the waste of life; there is no care that the soul should be more pure, because the body is more frail; that the inward man should be more fit to live with Christ, as the outward man is more ready to fall down into his native dust..

To stop this easy, and fatal flow of life, and to extract religious wisdom from years, we must have recourse to self-exa

mination; another year of my life is gone; am I better by that year? is there one bad passion which I have conquered, reduced, or even attacked? am I more respectable in my own eyes? am I more the child of grace? do I feel an increased power over sin? can I fairly say, for the year that is past, that I have done something? that I have advanced a single step towards the

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prize of the high calling; or must I say, after the sun has carried light, and heat through all the nations; after nature has gone through her great circle; and the bud, and the leaf, and the fruit, have once more appeared, that I am, where I was before, still sinning, and resolving; still weeping, and offending; a feeble contrite being, unable to attain the virtue which I seek, and sure of being punished for the sin which I cannot avoid?

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Let us first remember, in discussing the utility of self-examination, that it must be done at repeated intervals when it is profitable; or it must be done once for all, when it is too late; if you wish to moderate those reproaches, which an human being makes to his own heart, give them their entrance now hear them at this time in obedient silence, or they will rush in, when the tale is nearly told, and visit you with such anguish as might well be avoided, by a life of moderate wretchedness; if you love difficulty better than despair, and are not willing to purchase a respite from present pain, at the expence of eternal affliction; do this now, that you may not hereafter be compelled to do worse.

Judge, or God will judge; repent, or he

will punish.

To avail ourselves of such a period as this, for the purposes of self-examination, is more necessary, in this great city, than in any other situation, because there are fewer blanks in our existence here, than there can be any where else. where else. We struggle here, not only for wealth, and power, and pleasure, but for the greatest wealth, the highest power, and the keenest pleasure.If the game of life is played elsewhere with attention, it is played here with passionate avidity the sun goes down too soon; and we chide the morning star till it brings. us back to the world. It is not here that men are ever driven back into their own hearts; men never see their own hearts; they know not what dwells there; whether it be the powers of darkness, or the angels of God.

It is not merely the want of leisure, in great cities, which makes it necessary to enter into that voluntary self-examination, to which we should never be impelled from

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