Pastoral Addresses Volume 9

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1841 Excerpt: ... No. XII. SELF-EXAMINATION. My Dear Friends: This address will reach you at the close of one year, or the beginning of another: in either case its congratulations and directions, its admonitions and cautions, will be in season. Bless the God of your mercies that he has guided, protected, sustained, and supplied you during another year of your pilgrimage in the wilderness state. Raise your Ebenezer, and inscribe upon it: Hitherto the Lord hath helped me; and having given utterance to the fulness of a grateful heart, that you are the living, the living to praise God, proceed to the work of selfexamination. One use we should make of the end of our years, is to consider them as restingplaces on the hill of life, or stages in its journey, where we should pause, turn round, take out our map, and inquire whether we are in the right road, and what progress we are making. Another year is opening before you with all its unknown unimagined scenes; it may be your last; and will be to some of you. Could you read the book of destiny, you would find, perhaps, written opposite your name: This year thou shalt die. It is, therefore, a suitable admonition to address to you tl Set thy house in order, for thou shall die and not live.-- For he that will die well and happily, must dress his soul by a diligent and frequent scrutiny; he must in this world love tears, humility, solitude, and repentance. Self-examination is a duty enjoined upon us both by reason and Scripture. Observe with what vehemence the apostle enforces it: Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves; know ye not your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates. 2 Cor. xiii. 5. This, recollect, was addressed to professing Christians, and is an exercise in wh...