is figurative; not implying that their sins will be forgotten by 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 pub, lic 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 mountain 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.

his

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 fluming fire; or, as he himself says, will come "with power and great glory 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 king. dom 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!

Do

My christian brethren, do you expect to witness these scenes? you expect, with your own eyes, to see "your God in glory, and your world on fire?" to hear with your own ears the sound of the great trump and the noise of dissolving elements? to stand up, each for himself, in the great assembly, and give account of all the deeds done in the body? Yes, you do expect this. What influence, then, let me ask, has this expectation on your conduct? Be honest with yourselves to-day. Lay open your hearts to the light. How often do you reflect that all your actions, and words, and thoughts, (yes, thoughts too,) must come into judgment? To bring the inquiry into narrower limits, that you may feel its force :what if all the thoughts of your heart, for one week, or only for this day, were written out and read before this assembly; would you shrink from the disclosure? Would it cover your face with confusion? How, then, can these same hearts bear the scrutiny of the omniscient eye, and the inspection of assembled worlds?

My dear impenitent hearers, with what emotions do you anticipate this glorious, dreadful day? Now the Saviour speaks in accents of love, while you spurn the heaven which he has purchased and the glory which he offers. But can your heart endure when he shall speak in the thunders of the last trump? His calls of mercy a thousand times repeated you can refuse, you do refuse. But when he shall summon you to judgment, can you refuse to obey that call? Here you stand on this earth, and defy the authority of Him who made it; but where will you stand in that day, when the heavens and the earth shall be no more? when you have called in vain to the rocks and to the mountains, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" By the preciousness of your soul, I pray you do not forget that day. By the love of Saviour, I pray you do not forget that day. In the name of your Judge, I beseech you, I charge you, do not forget that day.

your

The Question, whether it is right to use intoxicating drinks at the present day tried and settled.

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ: that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.-2 CORINTHIANS, 5: 10.

There is no better mode of testing the moral character of our actions, and of arriving at a correct and safe judgment respecting them, than to carry them forward to the great and infallible adjudication of human conduct, and try to discover how they will appear as subjected to the scrutiny of the all-seeing and impartial Judge. And, as we have not assembled together to-day for the purpose of being amused, nor merely to review again scenes of temporal ruin and distress which we have often contemplated before as connected with the vice of intemperance, nor to pass sentence of condemnation one upon another, for past differences of opinion among ourselves on this subject, but to consider seriously and prayerfully a great moral question,-involving considerations far more interesting than any scenes of mere physical and temporal suffering can involve-it will accord well with the design of our present meeting, if, dropping every other inquiry pertaining to this subject, we occupy this hour with an examination of the following plain and simple question:

Is it right, morally considered, in the eye of God and of his law, for persons in health, and under present circumstances of light and knowledge on the subject, to use intoxicating liquors as a drink? Can this practice be fairly justified on any correct principles of morality? Is it sanctioned by an unprejudiced and enlightened conVOL. XIV.

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