ter? I reply, doubtless a plain reader of the Bible would understand this to be the meaning of its often-repeated declarations, like the following: "God will render to every one according to his deeds;""For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account in the day of judgment;" "Every one shall receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."

But it may be said that this view of the subject is attended with two important difficulties. The first is, that to suppose all men will be treated according to their deeds, in the judgment, is inconsistent with the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Certainly it is a subject not of empty speculation, but of awful interest for us to understand, on what depends our acquittal or condemnation before the Judge of all.

Now the only standard of duty which God has given to men is the law and the Gospel. The Gospel confirms all the original precepts of the law, and adds others of its own, adapted to the case of transgressors. The standard of trial and the standard of duty must be the same. Suppose, then, you are arraigned at the final bar. There the law, your original rule of life, is presented, with all its holy claims, as the measure of your character. There your own actions are unfolded, from the record of God's omniscience. Can you stand up then and say, as a sinless angel might, All the precepts of the law have I kept? No child of Adam can say this. No one can be justified, therefore, on the ground of a perfect, meritorious obedience. The Gospel then is presented with its additional claims. Have you repented of your sins, and believed in Christ? If so, you may be accounted righteous for the sake of his atonement; and thus, while guilty in yourself, you may plead a righteousness which meets the demands of both law and Gospel. All your deeds, then, whether good or evil, are brought into judgment for important ends: the evil, to honor the grace by which they are pardoned; the good, to honor the grace by which they are produced, and as public testimonials of love to Christ. Thus you are saved as a hell-deserving sinner; not for the sake of any merit either in faith or in the obedience which springs from it, but for the sake of that all-sufficient righteousness which is received by faith alone.

But suppose you are destitute of this faith, how does the case stand? A fearful catalogue of deeds, evil, and evil only, stares you in the face. You have no righteousness in yourself, none in Christ, to meet the claims of a broken law. All its curses must fall, without abatement, on your guilty head.

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But it is said there is still another difficulty. In many passages of the Bible the sins of believers are spoken of "covered," membered no more," "blotted out," and "cast into the depths of the sea." Such declarations, it is alleged, are at least inconsistent with the supposition that the sins of believers will be publicly exhibited at the day of judgment. But does this language certainly

imply that the sins of believers will be concealed in that day? There are many reasons for thinking that the Spirit of God did not mean to teach us this. The pardon of a believer cannot imply that when his sins are "blotted out," they shall thenceforward be unknown to other intelligent beings.

Such a supposition is inconsistent with fact. For the sins of good men have already been published very extensively, and that under the express direction of God himself. All who have read the Bible know of David's adultery, Hezekiah's vain-glory, and Peter's denial of his Master. How can you and I forget the sins of these men, when we shall meet them in the judgment?

If the sins of good men were concealed, their holy affections would not be adequately displayed. In what view does the piety of Paul shine with the most attractive interest? In his deep contrition for having persecuted the church. Why are we tenderly affected by the glow of penitential feeling in the fifty-first Psalm ? Because it is the language of a broken heart, lamenting its woful defection from God. So all the graces that shone in sanctified Peter must for ever be associated in the recollections of the church, with the dreadful deed he committed at the high priest's palace? If the sins of good men were concealed, the sins of the wicked could not be fully exhibited. The complex relations of this world make men in a thousand ways instrumental of each other's actions. Many a youth has been accelerated in the way to death, not simply by the influence of ungodly associates, but by the occasional indiscretions of a pious parent. Many a bold despiser of the Gospel has been strengthened in his unbelief by the unworthy conduct of some professor or minister of religion, whose piety, though not sufficiently elevated and uniform, is still unquestionable. Now, the sins of the wicked being thus intertwined with those of the righteous, how is it possible that the one should be fully exhibited while the other is concealed?

And what good purpose, let me further ask, would be answered by such concealment? Would it render the sins of believers less real or less hateful? Would it magnify the grace by which they are forgiven? Would it make them more humble or watchful?

In its practical influence, too, on the lives of christians, the expectation of a public disclosure at the judgment is important. Depraved affections are cherished by the shade of secrecy, and awed into constraint by the apprehension of exposure to the light. He, then, who firmly believes that all the motives of his actions and all the secrets of his heart will be revealed before assembled worlds, will keep that heart with all diligence. He will watch and pray against sin; will resist the threatening temptation, and suppress the rising emotion that would draw him to dishonor God and wrong his own soul.

We come, therefore, to this plain conclusion, that when the sins of believers are spoken of as covered and blotted out, the language is figurative; not implying that their sins will be forgotten bỷ

God, or by themselves, or that they will be hidden from others, at the judgment. The simple meaning is that they are forgiven ; and when God shall bring "every work into judgment, with every secret thing," all heaven must adore the wisdom that guards the inviolable honors of the law, while it provides for the pardon of its penitent transgressors.

We have thus seen that the world will be judged by Jesus Christ, and will be judged in righteousness.

But we must not leave this subject without a nearer view of those transactions which involve the immortal interests of us all. God forbid, my hearers, that I should seek to amuse your fancy on a subject so awfully serious as this. The only description of the last day on which we can rely is that which the Bible contains; and to a few chief points of this description let us now direct our thoughts.

The coming of Christ, then, to judge the world, will be a public event.

His ascension from Mount Olivet, though a scene of deep and tender interest to his disciples, was comparatively a private occurrence, witnessed only by a few select friends. Not so his return. No testimony of chosen witnesses will then be needed. None of the ordinary means by which great events have been announced from man to man, and from nation to nation, will be employed on that occasion. No heralds or gazettes will spread the intelligence that the Judge is coming; for he "shall descend from heaven with a shout." Every ear shall hear the proclamation, “Behold, he cometh in clouds; and every eye shall see him.”

It will be a sudden event.

The fact that Christ will come to judgment is plainly and often declared, but the time when he will come has never been expressly revealed. "Of that day and hour," said the Judge himself, "knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." The reason of this arrangement is immediately suggested; "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. Watch and pray always, that ye may be counted worthy to stand before the Son of Man." But that event, it seems, will come unexpectedly to a careless world; sudden as lightning, sudden as the storm of wrath that burst on the cities of the plain. At midnight the cry will be made, "The bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him." That cry will reach the bottom of the grave, and the deepest caverns of the sea; will ring in the ears of sleeping millions; will echo through all heaven, through all hell; "Behold, the bridegroom cometh."

It will be a majestic event.

When God descended to give the law at Sinai, the whole mount was covered with a cloud of smoke, and quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, all the people trembled. Well might they tremble; God was there in majesty. But sublime and awful as it was, how did

that occasion compare with the scene before us. Then, a single nountain quaked; now, continents and oceans, the earth, and the skies, shall be shaken. Then, mighty thunderings issued from a single cloud; now, "the heavens will pass away with a great noise." Then, the top of Sinai was in a blaze; now, "the elements will melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein will be burnt up." Here will be majesty such as the universe has never witnessed. With dread significance is this called "the great and notable day of the Lord." In its circumstances, its objects, and its consequences, it will be verily a great day.

Great in its circumstances.

It will be ushered in with the sound of a "great trumpet ;" the heavens will pass away "with a great noise," the Judge will be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire; or, as he himself says, will come "with power and great glory;" his own glory as God incarnate; the glory of his Father's goodness, omnipotence, and vengeance; the glory of the holy angels. He will be seated on "a great white throne." Truly this will be a great day.

There will be a great assembly. Those first rebels in the kingdom of God, the angels who kept not their first estate, will be summoned to the trial of that day.

"Then the great foe of God and man,
"From his dark den blaspheming, drags his chains,
"And rears his brazen front, with thunder scarr'd,
"Receives his sentence, and begins his hell."

Then the sea will give up its dead, and death and hell will deliver up the dead that are in them. There will be Adam, the father of our race. There will be Noah, Abraham, Moses, and all the patriarchs; Samuel, David, Isaiah, and all the prophets; Peter, John, Paul, and all the apostles. There will be the men of Sodom and of Nineveh. There will be all the Cæsars that have troubled the world; all the armies and senates that have been the instruments of their ambition; all the Neros that have persecuted the church; all the missionaries that have labored, and the martyrs that have bled for Christ; all the preachers who have sought, under whatever name, to promote or to pervert the truth; and all their hearers who have embraced or rejected the Gospel.

There shall you and I be. This congregation will make a part of that vast assembly. We who have preached Jesus the Saviour, or have heard him preached with cold hearts, shall then see him; we shall see him. And Oh! that sight will fill these hearts with anguish or joy.

Pilate saw him once as a despised Galilean, arraigned in his judgment-hall, and condemned to scourging and crucifixion. With what feelings must he see him now? Herod and his soldiers saw him, and set him at naught. With what feelings must they see him, encompassed with ten thousand times ten thousand saints

and angels? They who platted the crown of thorns, and they who drove the nails and thrust the spear, how must they feel, when they see the glory, or rather when they are struck blind with the effulgent glory of their Judge?

That day will be great in its objects. Then the character of God will shine with a lustre before unknown to mortals. His law will appear in all its perfection and glory. His providence will break forth from the darkness in which it has been shrouded, as the consummation of unsearchable wisdom and goodness. That day will exhibit in a new light the worth of man's soul; the deadly depravity of his heart; the efficacy, and plenitude, and sovereignty of divine grace. And then the plan of salvation will appear in all its parts and provisions, with all the resplendent lustre reflected from the Redeemer's crown; to men and angels the everlasting object of wonder and joy.

When custom, or curiosity, or duty calls together an assembly of men in this world, how often do their faces betray the listlessness of their hearts? Here is a sleeper, there a trifler. But to those objects for which the world will be gathered at the judgment-seat, no one will feel indifferent. Among all those millions, not one sleeper, not one trifler will be seen not one who does not know that his own immortal interests are at stake.

That day will be great in its consequences. It will be a day of separation. In this world you see the two great classes of men, the righteous and the wicked, promiscuously intermingled together. You see them enlightened by the same sun, breathing the same air, speaking the same language, protected by the same laws, associated in the same scenes of business. On the Sabbath you see them enter the same sanctuary, and sit side by side, to hear the same sermon. In the family you see them seated at the same table, eating the same food, and lying down to rest under the same roof. But the great Judge of hearts sees all this time the difference between those who love him and those who do not; and he will show this difference in the day of separation. Then the husband and wife, who lived together in this world, he will place, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; parent and child, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; brother and sister, one on the right hand, the other on the left. They part, not as in this life they had often done, for a few days or weeks, to meet again, with new transports of affection: they part for ever. That separation is final and eternal.

To those on his right hand the Judge will say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father." To those on his left, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." "There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Think, my beloved hearers, on the amazing import of these words-everlasting punishment-life eternal. O, the ecstasy of the redeemed, while they ascend to their thrones of glory! O, the agony of despairing sinners, while they sink under the frown of their Judge!