Transcribed from the 1842 J. G. F. & J. Rivington edition.
DELIVERED
ON SUNDAY,OCTOBER 23, A.D. 1842,
AT THEPARISH CHURCH OF
ST. MARY ABBOTTS,KENSINGTON.
BY THEVEN.
ARCHDEACON POTT, M.A.
PRINTED ATTHE REQUEST OF THE PARISHIONERS.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON,
ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD,
AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL.
1842.
p. 5TO
THE PARISHIONERS
OF
THE PARISH OF KENSINGTON,
THEFOLLOWING DISCOURSE,
WITH EVERYFERVENT PRAYER FOR THEIR WELFARE,
ISINSCRIBED,
BY THEIRFAITHFUL
ANDAFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
J. H. POTT.
Eccles.iii. 1.
“To every thingthere is a season, and a time to every purpose under theheaven.”
When time draws on to a close withus, the last opportunities should be carefully regarded andapplied to some such purpose as may show what has been the chiefaim and the main design of past endeavours.
A sad thing it would be, indeed, if the last portion of ourtime were to be reserved for some single effort: for who canaccomplish at one step that which a daily progress only caneffect?
They who enjoyed long lives of old time, indulged, it must beowned, in some complaints which showed more of the weakness ofour common nature, than of that proficiency for which the loan oflife, whatever p.8may be the term of its duration, is bestowed. Thegood king Hezekiah poured his lamentation, when it should seem hehad much cause to be contented with what God had wrought for himin his day. He called that “the cutting off hisdays,” which it may be thought he might have met with morecomplacency of mind, from the contemplation of the benefits whichGod had enabled him to procure for Israel: but if there was anytoken of infirmity in this, it was coupled with a pious mind, andthe suit was therefore heard and granted. If David, too,seems sometimes querulous in his pleas for the enlargement of hisdays, yet he added a good and becoming reason for it, that hemight show the power of God to that generation in which hiseventful lot was cast, and make it known to those who were tocome.
But we may remark in general, that we do not form a rightjudgment of the Providence of God, if at any t