how nearly he approaches their accomplishment. He will often reflect how much one portion of life affects another portion, and he will not lose sight of the connexion between this world, and that which is to come. It is obviously one great object of divine revelation to teach us that our conduct in this life is to decide our condition in the life which is to succeed the present. Can the imagination conceive a truth of greater moment than this?

While as yet then we have our destiny within our own power, and it may not be too late to retrieve errors, which we may have committed, to make restitution for injuries which we have inflicted, to reform what in our temper and conduct we cannot but condemn, let us by humble penitence seek the forgiveness of God; and by wise counsels and virtuous deeds lay the foundation of future satisfaction and joy.

The expiring year, has summoned many to their last account. How many of these would have given worlds, had it rested with them, for the time which has been granted to us. Let the lapse of time then induce us to propose to ourselves, and to be satisfied with no other than a direct and explicit answer to this simple but solemn question, whether the condition of our moral character, and the course of our lives are such as we can hereafter look back upon with entire satisfaction; such as are consistent with our religious and christian obligations; such as will permit us to give up our account not only without shame and alarm but with a reasonable confidence in the divine favor? Happy is the man, who, in such a survey, is not compelled to condemn himself; and who, in the unhesitating approbation of his own conscience, may anticipate the favorable decision of that infallible judge, who is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things.

SERMON X.

OCCASIONS OF SELF-DECEPTION.

PSALM xix. 12.

WHO CAN UNDERSTAND HIS ERRORS?

THAT we are prone to form a wrong judgment of ourselves, no one will doubt. Mankind are almost universally disposed to entertain a more favorable opinion of themselves than is just. They think more of their good than their bad deeds; more of their virtues than their sins. They overrate their virtues; they excuse or forget their sins. It is preferable, we admit, to err on one side rather than the other. It is more likely to rouse his efforts, to waken and stimulate hist vigilance that a man should think too humbly rather than too highly of himself. It would be better that he should do neither; both are faults; both may be injurious to the character. It is our duty to think soberly of ourselves. It is most desirable that we should form a true judgment; value our virtues at a true rate; however we may be anxious to pass with the world,

endeavor to pass for no more than we are worth with ourselves; strive in short to think and feel and judge of ourselves, as we have reason most seriously to think, that God, the searcher of hearts, whose estimate of human character is infallible, himself judges of us.

I. Such a judgment is not an ordinary nor easy attainment. Few men arrive at it. There are obstacles in the way of its attainment.

The Psalmist, when he exclaims in the text, who can understand his errors, felt the difficulty of this acquisition; and this is what is implied in the text. When he exclaims, who can understand his errors, or as, in another translation, who can tell how oft he offendeth, he did not mean to represent the knowledge of ourselves as an impossible attainment; but that it was extremely difficult, and perhaps as rare as it was difficult.

This every one must admit, who properly considers the facts in the case. Few persons judge of themselves justly. Few persons know themselves. Few persons understand their errors. The Psalmist himself affords a memorable example of this self-ignorance and deception. He had been guilty of two of the greatest crimes, adultery and murder. He had invaded the domestic sanctuary of a poor and humble family with a view to corrupt its purity. When he could not accomplish his diabolical purposes by other means, he procured the death of the husband of that household; and filled to overflowing the measure of his iniquity. *The prophet, sent by God, to reprove him for his crimes, under a parabolical representation, portrayed his guilt

* 1 Samuel, xii. 7.

He spoke of a rich man's

in a most affecting manner. oppression of his poor neighbor; and his plunder of his best property. The rich man forbore to take of his own flock and his own herd, which crowded his pastures and stalls; but from the poor man, who had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished with as much tenderness as a child; which grew up together with him and his children; which did eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup; "which lay in his bosom and was unto him as a daughter," and this every kind parent knows is saying all that can be said, this lamb the rich man forcibly took away from his neighbor to kill and to dress for the man that had visited him. It was, by no comparison, so aggravated a case of cruelty and crime as that with which the king himself at that moment stood chargeable. Yet his conscience seems to have been not at all alarmed, until the prophet himself applied it; and told him, when he had declared that the man who had done this thing should surely die, and thus had pronounced sentence on himself, that he himself was the man. He then felt his guilt most deeply, as the fifty-first Psalm composed on that occasion fully proves; but it was not until then. So difficult is it for men to know themselves; to form a faithful judgment of themselves; to apply to themselves the same rules by which they judge of the characters of other men. Self-knowledge indeed is rare; self-deception is common.

II. Let us inquire, in the next place, why it is so? I shall refer to a few of the occasions of this self-deception; and shall rather leave them to your own reflections than to enlarge upon them.

1. First, men are blinded by their self-love. The affec

tions have always a great influence over the judgment; now no affections are stronger than those, which we have for ourselves. Our interest and happiness are materially concerned in thinking well of ourselves. This operates as a bribe to our consciences, to pronounce a verdict in our favor. This prompts us likewise to invent many excuses and palliations of our criminal actions, which would be inadmissible, if we were not ourselves parties in the case. This often prevents our examining ourselves with severity; we hastily make up a favorable judgment; and we are, in our own case, always disposed to suppose the best, where the worst does not most obviously appear. Self-love is in most persons one of the strongest sentiments; and as men, when struggling for existence will grasp at any thing to save themselves, so in respect to their good opinion of themselves, they will seize upon the slightest pretences; they will rest upon reasons the most fallacious and insubstantial, if only they can preserve their self-complacency, and avoid the mortifying reproaches of their own hearts.

2. In the next place we are accustomed to judge of ourselves by a false standard; or at least a defective measure of duty.

We are too much inclined to take public opinion for our rule. We measure our duty by what that demands of us. This must differ in different communities. In some it must in many things be a corrupting rule; but in the best cases it is an imperfect rule; sanctioning many things, which religion does not sanction; omitting to require many things, which that demands. Public opinion, however intelligent and acute, can reach only the external conduct; and a man may render to it an unimpeachable conformity, he may be all which that