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great difference between this and other subjects of discussion. When we treat of a point of doctrine, it is sufficient that you hear it, and remember the consequences drawn from it. When we explain a difficult text, it is enough that you understand it and recollect it. When we press home a particular duty of morality, it is sufficient that you apply it to the particular circumstance to which it belongs.

But what regards the passions is of universal and perpetual use. We always carry the principles of these passions within us, and we should always have assistance at hand to subdue them. Always surrounded with objects of our passions, we should always be guarded against them. We should remember these things, when we see the benefits of fortune, to free ourselves from an immoderate attachment

other enemies! Enable us to triumph over our passions as thou hast enabled us to succeed in levelling the walls of a city! Stretch out thy holy arm in our favour, in this church, as in the field of battle! So be the protector both of the state and the church, crown our efforts with such success, that we may offer the most noble songs of praise to thy glory. Amen.

SERMON LXIII.*

TRANSIENT DEVOTIONS.

HOSEA vi. 4.

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.

THE church has seldom seen happier days than those described in the nineteenth chapter of Exodus. God had never diffused his benedictions on a people in a richer abundance. Never had a people gratitude more lively, piety more fervent. The Red Sea had been passed, Pharaoh and his insolent court were buried in the waves, access to the land of promise was opened, Moses had been admitted on the holy mountain to derive felicity from God the source, and sent to distribute it amongst his countrymen; to these choice fa

to them; before human grandeur to despise it; before sensual objects to subdue them; before our enemy, to forgive him; before friends, children, and families, to hold ourselves disengaged from them. We should always examine in what part of ourselves the passions hold their throne, whether in the mind, the senses, or the imagination, or the heart. We should always examine whether they have depraved the heart, defiled the imagination, perverted the senses, or blinded the mind. We should ever remember, that we are strangers upon earth, that to this our condition calls us, our religion invites us, and our nature compels us. But alas! It is this, it is this general influence, which these exhortations ought to have over our lives, that makes us fear we have ad-vours promises of new and greater blessings dressed them to you in vain. When we treat of a point of doctrine, we may persuade ourselves it has been understood. When we explain a difficult text, we flatter ourselves we have thrown some light upon it. When we urge a moral duty, we hope the next occasion will bring it to your memory: and yet how often have we deceived ourselves on these articles! How often have our hopes been vain! How often have you sent us empty away, even though we demanded so little! What will be done to-day? Who that knows a little of mankind, can flatter himself that a discourse intended, in regard to a great number, to change all, to reform all, to renew all, will be directed to its true design!

were yet added, and God said, "ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people, although the earth be mine," ver. 4, 5. The people were deeply affected with this collection of miracles. Each individual entered into the same views, and seemed animated with the same passion, all hearts were united, and one voice expressed the sense of all the tribes of Israel, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do," ver. 8. But this devotion had one great defect, it lasted only forty days. In forty days the deliverance out of Egypt, the catastrophe of Pharoah, the passage through the sea, the articles of the covenant; in forty days vows, promises, oaths, all were effaced from the heart and forgotten. Moses was absent, the lightning did not glitter, the thunder claps did not roar, and the Jews

But, O God, there yet remains one resource, it is thy grace, it is thine aid, grace that we have a thousand times turned into lasciviousness, and which we have a thousand times rejected; yet after all assisting grace, which we most humbly venture to implore. When we approach the enemy, we earnestly beseech" made a calf in Horeb, worshipped that molthee, "teach our hands to war, and our fingers to fight!" When we did attack a town, we fervently besought thee to render it accessible to us! Our prayers entered heaven, our enemies fled before us, thou didst bring us into the strong city, and didst lead us into Edom, Ps. lx. 9. The walls of many a Jericho fell at the sound of our trumpets, at the sight of thine ark, and the approach of thy priest: but the old man is an enemy far more formidable than the best disciplined armies, and it is harder to conquer the passions than to beat down the walls of a city! O help us to subdue this old man, as thou hast assisted us to overcome

ten image, and changed their glorious God into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass," Ps. cxi. 19, 20. It was this that drew upon Moses this cutting reproof from God, Go, said he to Moses, to that Moses always fervent for the salvation of his people, always ready to plead for them, "go, get thee down, for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them," Exod. xxxii. 7, 8. They

* Preached the first Lord's day of the year 1710. The Lord's Supper day.

have quickly turned aside, this is the great de-ferings to thee may be without repentance! O fect of their devotion, this is that which renders all devotion incomplete.

that we may be able to reply, "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my fidelity shall never depart from thee, neither shall the dedication which I have made of myself to thee, ever be removed! I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments." Amen.

"O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?" Ephraim, Judah, are terms of the text that have very little need of explication. You know that the

Do you know this portrait, my brethren? Has this history nothing in it like yours? Are any days more solemn than such as we observe in our present circumstances? Did God ever draw near to us with more favours than he has this day? Did we ever approach him with more fervour? On the one hand, the beginning of another year recalls to mind the serious and alarming discourses, which the ministers of Jesus Christ addressed to us on the last anniver-people of God were united in one state till the sary, the many strokes given, to whom? To the enemies of God? Alas! To the state and the church! Many cut off in the field of battle, many others carried away in the ordinary and inevitable course of things, many perils, in one word, with which we were threatened, but which thy mercy, O God, has freed us from! On the other hand this sacred table, these august symbols, these earnests of our eternal felicity, all these objects, do they not render this day one of the most singular in our lives?

If heaven has thus heard the earth (we are happy to acknowledge it, my brethren, and we eagerly embrace this opportunity of publishing your praise) the earth has heard the heaven. To judge by appearance, you have answered our wishes, and exceeded our hopes. You were exhorted to prepare for the Lord's supper, you did prepare for it. You were called to public worship, you came. You were exhorted to attend to the word of God, you did attend to it. You were required to form resolutions of a holy life, you made these resolutions. It seemed, while we saw you come with united ardour this morning to the table of Jesus Christ, it seemed as if we heard you say, with the Israelites of old, "Ail that the Lord hath spoken we will do."

But we declare, my brethren, a cloud comes over the bright scene of this solemnity. I fear, shall I say the forty? alas, I fear the four succeeding days! These doors will be shut, this table will be removed, the voice of the servants of God will cease to sound in your ears, and I fear the Lord will say of you, "they have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them."

time of Jeroboam, when he rent apart from Rehoboam the son of Solomon, thus two kingdoms were constituted, that of Judah and that of Israel. Jerusalem was the capital city of Judah, and of Israel Samaria was the metropolis, and it is sometimes called Ephraim in Scripture. By Judah and Ephraim the prophet then means both these kingdoms. This wants no proof, and if there be any thing worth remarking on this occasion, it is that most interpreters, who are often the echoes of one another, describe the ministry of Hosea as directed only to the kingdom of Israel, whereas it is clear by the text, and by several other passages, that it was addressed both to Israel and Judah.

But of all unlucky conjectures, I question whether there be one more so than that of some divines, who think our text prophetical. In their opinion the goodness mentioned in the text is the mercy of God displayed in the gospel. The dew signifies Jesus Christ. The morning, "thy goodness is like the morning dew," intends the covenant of grace. As every one proposes his opinion under some appearance of evidence, it is said in favour of this, that the expression, thy goodness, does not signify the goodness of the people, but that which is manifested to the people, and in proof of this the idiom of the Hebrew tongue is alleged, with divers passages that justify this tour of expression, as this, " 'my people are bent to their backsliding," that is to backsliding from me. The dew, say they, signifies the Messiah, for he is promised under that emblem in many passages of Scripture. They add farther, the morning signifies the new dispensation of the gospel, which is often announced under this idea by the prophets, and all this text, "thy goodness is as the early dew which goeth away," opens a wonderful contrast between the law and the gospel. The law was like a storm of hail destroying the fruits of the earth, but the gospel is a dew that makes every thing fruitful. The law was a dark night, but the gospel was a fine day; "thy goodness is like the morning dew which goeth away," that is to say, which cometh. Here are many good truths out of place. Thy goodness may signify, O Almighty God! We humbly beseech thee, for any thing we know, goodness exercised toenable us in the offerings we make to thee towards thee; the Messiah is represented as a resemble thee in the favours which thou bestowest upon us! Thy gifts to us are without repentance, thy covenant with us contains this clause, "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed. I have sworn that I will not be wroth with thee!" O that our of

Let us not content ourselves with foreseeing this evil, let us endeavour to prevent it. This is the design of the present discourse, in which we will treat of transient devotions. To you, in the name of God, we address the words, the tender words, which will occasion more reflections than they may seem at first to do, but which no reflections can exhaust, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away."

dew; the gospel economy is promised under the emblem of the morning; all this is true, but all this is not the sense of the text. The word goodness, which is the first mistake of the exposition just now given, may be understood of piety in general. It has that meaning in many passages of Scripture. The substantive derived from it is usually put for pious persons, and

according to a celebrated critic, it is from the word hasidim, the pious, that the word Essenes is derived, a name given to the whole sect among the Jews, because they professed a more eminent piety than others. A "goodness like the morning dew" is a seeming piety, "which goeth away," that is of a short duration, and all these words, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away," are a reproof from God to his people for the unsteadiness of their devotions. In this light we will consider the text, and show you first the nature-and secondly the unprofitableness of transient devotions.

I. Let us first inquire the nature of the piety in question. What is this goodness or piety, that "is as a morning cloud, and goeth away as the early dew?" We do not understand by this piety either those deceitful appearances of hypocrites, who conceal their profane and irreligious hearts under the cover of ardour and religion, or the disposition of those Christians, who fall through their own frailty from high degrees of pious zeal, and experience emotions of sin after they have felt exercises of grace. The devotion we mean to describe goes farther than the first: but it does not go so far as the last.

The transient devotion, of which we speak, is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy cannot suspend the strokes of divine justice one single moment, and it is more likely to inflame than to extinguish the righteous indignation of God. It is not to hypocrites that God addresses this tender language, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?" Their sentence is declared, their punishment is ready. "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophecy of you, saying, this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. The portion of hypocrites shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," Matt. xy. 7; xxiii. 31, and xxiv. 51.

the frailty of his nature to go down again into the world, and to employ himself about what? A suit of clothes, a menial servant, a nothing! Above all, it is very mortifying to him, after he has tasted pleasure so pure, to feel himself disposed to sin! But after all, this piety, though very imperfect, is genuine and true. It should humble us, but it should not destroy us, and we should be animated with a spirit too rigid, were we to confound this piety with that, which "is as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that goeth away."

The piety we speak of lies between these two dispositions. As I said before, it does not go so far in religion as the second, but it does go beyond the first. It is sincere, in that it is superior to hypocrisy; but it is unfruitful, and in that respect it is inferior to the piety of the weak and revolting Christian. It is sufficient to discover sin, but not to correct it; sufficient to produce sincere resolutions, but not to keep them: it softens the heart, but it does not renew it; it excites grief, but it does not eradicate evil dispositions. It is a piety of times, opportunities, and circumstances, diversified a thousand ways, the effect of innumerable causes, and, to be more particular, it usually ows its origin to public calamities, or to solemn festivals, or to the approach of death: but it expires as soon as the causes are removed.

1. By piety, "like the early dew that goeth away," we mean that which is usually excited by public calamities. When a state prospers, when its commerce flourishes, when its armies are victorious, it acquires weight and consequence in the world. Prosperity is usually productive of crimes. Conscience falls asleep during a tumult of passions, as depravity continues security increases, the patience of God becomes weary, and he punishes either by taking away prosperity, or by threatening to take it away. The terrible messengers of divine justice open their commission. The winds which he makes his angels, begin to utter their voices: flames of fire, constituted his ministers, display their frightful light. Pestilence, war, famine, executioners of the decrees of heaven, prepare to discharge their dreadful office. One messenger called death, and another called hell, receive their bloody commission, "to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, the fourth part of the earth," Rev. vi. 8. Each individual sees his own doom in the public decree. "Capernaum exalted to heaven is

Nor is the piety we mean to describe that of the weak and revolting believer. How imperfect soever this piety may be, yet it is real. It is certainly a very mortifying consideration to a believer that he should be at any time hemmed in, confined, and clogged, in his devotional exercises. In some golden days of his life, forgetting the world, and wholly employ-going to be thrust down to hell," Luke x. 15. ed about heavenly things, how happy was he, how delicious his enjoyments, when he surmounted sense and sin, ascended to God like Moses formerly on the holy mount, and there conversed with his heavenly Father concerning religion, salvation, and eternity! O how richly did he then think himself indemnified for the loss of time in worldly pursuits by pouring his complaints into the bosom of God, by opening all his heart, by saying to him with inspired men, "Lord, thou knowest that I love thee! it is good for me to draw near to God! My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips!" I say, it is a very mortifying thing to him, after such elevations in the enjoyment of such magnificent objects, to be obliged through

Jonah walks about Nineveh, and makes the walks echo with this alarming proclamation, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown," chap. iii. 4. Or, to lay aside borrowed names, and to make our portrait like the original, your ministers free from their natural timidity or indolence, despising those petty tyrants, or shall I rather say those diminutive insects, who amidst a free people would have us the only slaves; who while all kinds of vices have free course would have the word of God bound, and would reduce the exercise of the reform ministry to a state more mean and pusillanimous than that of court bishops, or the chaplains of kings; I say, your ministers have made you hear their voice, they have

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tioning itself to our frailty. How considerable soever the truths of religion are, it is certain they lose their importance by our hearing them always proposed in the same circumstances, and the same points of light. There are some days which put on I know not what of the extraordinary, and put in motion, so to speak, the first great powers of religion. To this our festivals are directed, and this is one of the principal uses of the Lord's Supper. Were this ordinance not appointed with this view as some affirm, had not God annexed some peculiar benediction to it, yet it would be a weak pretence to keep from the Lord's table, and the use generally granted would always be a sufficient reason to induce those to frequent it who have their salvation at heart. But however this may be, it is certain that such days occasion the sort of devotion we are describing, and usually produce a piety" like the morning cloud, and the early dew that goeth away."

gone back to your origin, and laid before you | vigorate and bring it to maturity, thus proporthe cruel edicts, the sanguinary proscriptions, the barbarous executions, the heaps of mangled carcasses, which were, if I may so speak, the first foundations of this republic. From what you were then they have proceeded to what you are now; they have represented to you the end proposed by the Supreme Being in distinguishing you by so many merciful advantages; they have told you it was to engage you to inform idolatrous nations of the truth, to nourish and favour it in cruel and persecuting countries, to support it at home, and so to cast out profaneness, infidelity, and atheism. They have repeatedly urged you to come to a settlement of accounts on these subjects, and they have delivered in against you such an interrogatory as this; are the "hands which hang down, and the feeble knees lifted up?" Does superstition cover the truth in any places of your government? Is the affliction of Joseph neglected? Does irreligion insolently lift its head among you, and is it protected by such as are bound to suppress it? They have shown you the Deity ready to punish an obstinate perseverance in sin, and, if you will forgive the expression, they have preached, illuminated by lightning, and their exhortations have been enforced by thunder. Then every one was struck, all hearts were united, every one ran to the "breach, to turn away the wrath of God, lest he should destroy us all," Ps. cvi. 23. The magistrate came down from his tribunal, the merchant quitted his commerce, the mechanic laid aside his work, yea the very libertine suspended his pleasures; vows, prayers, solemn protestations, tears, relentings, promises, sincere promises, nothing was wanting to your devotions. Then the angels rejoiced, a compassionate God smiled, the corn revived, war was hushed, and was dying away; but along with the first tide of prosperity came rolling back the former depravity, the same indifference to truth, the same negligence of religion, the same infidelity, the same profanity. This is the first kind of that piety, which is "as the early dew that goeth away." Let us study ourselves in the image of the Jews described in the context. Come," say they, when the prophet had predicted the Babylonish captivity to Judah, and the carrying away into Assyria to the ten tribes, "come, and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us, be hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two or three days he will revive us, and we shall live in his sight," ver. 12. "After they had rest, they did evil again before thee" (these are the words of Nehemiah,) "therefore thou didst leave them in the hand of their enemies. When they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heard est them from heaven, and many times didst thou deliver them, according to thy mercies. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as the morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away," chap. ix. 28.

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2. In a second class of transient devotions we place that which religious solemnities produce. Providence always watching for our salvation, has established in the church not only an ordinary ministry to cultivate our piety, but some extraordinary periods proper to in

We do not intend here to describe a kind of Christians too odious to be put even into this vicious class. For, my brethren, we have a very singular sort of people among us, who, though they live in the practice of all worldly licentiousness, will frequent the Lord's table, in spite of all the pains we take to show their unworthiness, and to keep them away. They will pass through a kind of preparation, and for this purpose they retrench a little portion of time from their course of licentiousness, set out, however, with so much accurate calculation that it is easy to see they consider devotion more in the light of a disagreeable task than in that of a holy enjoyment. They suspend their habits of sin the whole day before, and all the live long day after the communion. In this interval they receive the Lord's Supper, all the while determining to return to their old course of life. What devotion! in which the soul burns with love to worldly pleasure, while it affects to play off the treacherous part of love to religion and God! A devotion that disputes with Jesus Christ a right to three days, gives them up with regret and constraint, and keeps all along murmuring at the genius of a religion, which puts the poor insulted soul on the rack, and forces it to live three whole days without gaming and debauchery! A devotion deep in the plot of Judas to betray the Saviour at his own table! These people need not be characterized. We never administer the Lord's Supper without protesting against them; we never say any thing to them but "Wo, wo be to you;" and though, through a discipline of too much lenity, they escape excommunication, yet never can they escape the anathemas, which God in his word denounces against unworthy communicants.

We mean here people of another character. It is he among Christians who does not live in the practice of all sins, but who does reserve some, and some of those which, says the gospel, they who commit "shall not inherit the kingdom of God," I Cor. vi. 10. This man does not with a brutal madness commit such crimes as harden him beyond reflection and remorse, but he has a sincere desire to a certain degree to correct himself. He takes time enough to

prepare himself for the Lord's Supper, and then he examines his conscience, meditates on the great truths of religion, the justice of its laws, the holiness of every part, and the rich present which God bestowed on the church in the person of his own Son. He is affected with these objects, he applies these truths to himself, he promises God to reform: but, in a few days after the communion, he not only falls into one or two vicious actions, but he gives himself up to a vicious habit, and persists in it till the next communion, when he goes over again the same excesses of devotion, which end again in the same vices, and so his whole life is a continual round of sin and repentance, repentance and sin. This is a second sort of people whose devotions are transient.

spectfully attended to every thing we took the liberty to say, we entered on the mortifying subject, you submitted to the most humbling and circumstantial detail, you yourself filled up the list with articles unknown to us. Recollect the sighs you uttered, the tears you shed, the reproofs you gave yourself, yea, the odious names by which you described yourself. Remember the vows, the resolutions, the promises you made. What are become of all these fine projects of conversion and repentance, which should have had an influence over all your life? The degree of your piety was regulated by the degree of your malady. Devotion rose and fell with your pulse. Your zeal kept time with your fever, and as the one decreased the other died away, and the recovery of your health was the resurrection of sin. This man, this praying man, this holy soul, then full of pious ejaculations and meditations, is now brim

3. But, of all devotions of this kind, that which needs describing the most, because it comes nearest to true piety, and is most likely to be confounded with it, is that which is ex-ful of the world. You are the original of the cited by the "fear of death," and which vanishes as soon as the fear subsides.

The most emphatical, the most urgent, and the most pathetical of all preachers is death. What can be said in this pulpit which death does not say with tenfold force? What truth can we explain, which death does not explain with more evidence? Do we treat of the vanity of the world? So does death; but with much more power. The impenetrable veils which it throws over all terrestrial objects, the midnight darkness in which it involves them, the irrevocable orders it gives us to depart, the insurmountable power it employs to tear us away, represent the vanity of the world better than the most pathetical sermons. Do we speak of the horrors of sin? Death treats of this subject more fully and forcibly than we; the pains it brings, the marks it makes upon us while we are dying, the grave, to which it turns our eyes as our habitation after death, represent the horror of sin more than the most affecting discourses. Do we speak of the value of divine mercy? Death excels in setting this forth too; hell opening under us, executioners of divine vengeance ranging themselves round our bed, the sharp instruments held over us, represent the mercy of God more fully than the most touching discourses. No sermons like these! When then a sickness supposed to be mortal attacks a man, who has knowledge and sentiment enough to render him accessible to motives and reflections, but who has not either respect enough for holiness, or love enough for God thoroughly to attach himself to virtue, then rises this "morning cloud, this early dew that goeth away."

portrait in the text, and your piety is "" as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that goeth away."

II. We have seen the nature, now let us attend to the insufficiency of this kind of devotion. Let us endeavour in this second part of our discourse to feel the energy of this reproof, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.'

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1. On a day like this, in which we have partaken of what is most tender in religion, and in which we ought to yield to the soft feelings which religion is so fit to excite, let us advert to a singular kind of argument proposed in the text against transient devotions, that is, an argument of sentiment and love.

Certainly all the images which it pleases God to use in Scripture to make himself known to us, those taken from our infirmities, our passions, our hatred, or our love, all are too imperfect to represent a God, whose elevation above man renders it impossible to describe him by any thing human. However, all these images have a bottom of truth, a real meaning agreeable to the nature of God, and proportioned to his eminent and infinite excellence.

God represents himself here under the image of a prince who had formed an intimate connexion with one of his subjects. The subject seems deeply sensible of the honour done him. The prince signifies his esteem by a profusion of favours. The subject abuses them. The prince reprehends him. The subject is insensible and hard. To reproofs threatenings are added, and threatenings are succeeded by a susI appeal to many of you. Recall, each of pension of favours. The subject seems moved, you, that memorable day of your life, in which affected, changed. The prince receives the sudden fear, dangerous symptoms, exquisite penitent with open arms, and crowns his repain, a pale physician, and, more than all that, formation with a double effusion of bountiful a universal faintness and imbecility of your donations. The ungrateful subject abuses them faculties seemed to condemn you to a hasty again. The prince reproves him again, threatdeath. Remember the prudence you have had, ens him again, and again suspends his liberality. at least appeared to have, to make salvation To avert the same evil the selfish ingrate makes your only care, banishing all company, forbid- use of the former method, avails himself of the ding your own children to approach, and con- influence which the esteem of the prince gives versing with your pastor alone. Remember him, and again he obtains forgiveness. The the docility with which, renouncing all reluc- prince loves this violence: but the perfidious tance to speak of your own faults, and all subject knowing his goodness returns to his undesire to hear of those of other people, you re-grateful behaviour as often as his bountiful lord

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