death shall separate us again, but we with them and they with us shall reign, as blessed spirits, in the presence of the Lamb for ever and ever.

And now let me ask, is there one amongus, to whom this crown of rejoicing is not offered? is there one among us, by whom it may not be obtained? Ever let us keep it in view, as the animating and cheering spring of strength, of consolation, and of hope. In his earthly race, the candidate for a corruptible crown, never for a moment loses sight of his reward. Intent upon the prize proposed, he thinks every sacrifice he can undergo, to be at once an instrument and a blessing. But when we turn our eyes to the candidate for heaven, how little thought or anxiety do we see expended on the object of their labours. We might indeed imagine from the neglect and unconcern which they shew, that either there was no prize proposed for their contest, or at all events that it was not worth the contention. Hence it is, that " we run as uncertainly, we fight as one beating the air." But" so run that ye may obtain," calculate and feel the value of the crown, the incorruptible crown, for which you contend: and in the words of the great apostle, "forgetting those things that are behind and reaching forward unto those things that are before, press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus."

SERMON XXXIV.

PSALM XXXix. 5.

Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days, that I may be certified how long I have to live.

THE royal author of the Psalm from whence these words are taken, seems to have written it under the deepest affliction both of mind and of body. The account which he gives of his own feelings and conduct at the time is a very remarkable one. Knowing how useless and how wicked are all clamorous and hasty complaints, he determines to be silent, and to give his enemies no advantage over him. "I said I will take heed to my ways that I offend not in my tongue: I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle, while the ungodly is in my sight." But though he abstained from every expression of peevishness or desperation, he might have innocently and reasonably entered, like righteous Job, into a justification both of himself and of his God.

Remembering however, from the example of Job, how liable even in this respect he was to be mistaken, "he kept silence, yea even from good words, but it was pain and grief unto him.” There is not indeed a more painful feeling, than when the heart full of its own bitterness and sorrow, knows not to whom it shall impart its troubles, nor upon whom it shall repose its grief. Destitute of every earthly comforter and friend, the Psalmist flies for consolation and support to a higher power, and pours forth his tears and his prayers into the bosom of his Father and his God. 66 My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing, the fire kindled; and at the last I spake with my tongue. Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live." These are not the words of fretfulness or despair, but "the words of soberness and truth." He does not ask with idle curiosity, to know the exact day and hour on which his life shall end; this is not his meaning. He only asks to be so convinced of the shortness of his days, as to be the better enabled thereby to bear his present sorrows, and to prepare for his future end. This he asks "that he may be certified how long he has to live;" that he may know and feel how short a space even the longest life affords for the exercise of piety and obedience; and that as he

is certified of its shortness, so he may be certified of its value.

This sense of the words agrees exactly with the translation of them as we find it in the Bible, "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days what it is, that I may know how frail I am." The sum and substance indeed of his request is contained in the last verse of the Psalm; an entreaty it is, in which he will be joined most earnestly by every one among us, who knows that he is "a stranger only and a sojourner upon earth, as all his fathers were." The entreaty is this, "O spare me a little that I may recover my strength, before I go hence, and be no more seen." May God in his mercy grant that it may be the case of every one of us!

But many of us, however earnestly they might be inclined to pray for this, would proceed much farther in their supplications. We often think that if we knew the precise term of our end, and the exact number of our days, we should be the better and the happier creatures. We should not be the better, but the worse for this addition to our knowledge. It would make us more unhappy, more vicious, and more desperate. To shew this will be one of the chief objects of the present discourse. Let us consider then

First, The wisdom of God in hiding from us, the exact time of our end.

Secondly, The mercy of God in giving us the means so "to know our end, and the number of our days, as to apply our hearts unto wisdom." First, God in his wisdom has hidden from us the exact number of our days. Suppose now for a moment, that the Almighty was to reveal to each of us the precise length of his existence. Suppose he was to reveal to one of us that he should live fifty years, to another that he should live ten, to another that he should live one, to another that "this very night his soul should be required of him." What would be the immediate consequence of this? The affairs of the world around us would be plunged into utter confusion. Who would sow, if he did not hope to reap? who would labour and toil, if he was certain that he should not enjoy the fruits? All activity, all motive, all energy, would be destroyed; and in their stead would succeed envy, jealousy, and repining. Nor with respect to the soul itself would the change be for the better. If a young man, in the hope only of living fifty years, thinks that he may safely spend the first half of them in vice and folly, what would he do if he was certain of so long a continuance in life? Would he not the more securely put off his repentance and enjoy his sin? How would the day of reformation, year after year, be delayed; till at length in the agony of despair, even with the time open