will judge the world in righteoufnefs. What confideration ought to poffefs more powerful influence over human conduct? What can be more calculated to inspire men with a holy folicitude to approve themselves to God who judgeth the heart? It is with a view to promote this practical improvement of a truth fo interesting that I have chosen to offer it to you at present as the subject of your meditations.

But I dare not attempt to represent the grandeur and fublimity of that scene-I fhould only impair it. I limit my view to ideas more fimple, and, perhaps, more useful-to illuftrate thofe characters of the judgment fuggefted in the text-its certainty -its univerfality—its equity—and the glory of the judge-For, of this, faith the Holy-Spirit, he hath given affurance unto all men that he will judge the world—he will judge it in righteoufnefs-he will judge it by that man whom he hath ordained. You have thus before you the whole plan that I propose to myself in the following difcourfe.

I. In the first place, I shall endeavour to establish the certainty of the doctrine that

God will, in the conclufion of the present ftate of the world, appear to judge it, and to affign to the righteous and wicked their respective rewards in happiness, or in mifery.

I have no need to pursue this argument in detail before an assembly nursed and educated in the belief of the chriftian religion, and the hope of immortality. Ifhall, therefore, only recall to your minds, with the greatest brevity, the grounds on which it refts, that its evidence may give a stronger impreffion to thofe important and practical truths that are effentially connected with it. For this end, I purpofe to exhibit to you, in the first place, fome of the prefumptions in favour of this doctrine which we derive from reason, and the general ftate of the world, before I appeal to the irresistible authority of the facred writings.

An argument, of no inconfiderable force, for the certainty of a future judgment arifes from the teftimony, if I may call it fo, of human nature--that is, the concurrence of all nations in the belief and expectation of this great event. We find it under fome

form or other entering into the religious fyftems of the moit civilized, and the most barbarous people. It is written in the whole hiftory of man. Whence this univerfal fuffrage to a doctrine fo terrible in itfelf, and that contains fo little to invite the world to embrace it? From one, or, perhaps, from all of the following causes it feems probably to have arifen. From an original communication made by the Creator to the father of the race, from whom tradition has conveyed it to all his pofterity from the neceffary influence of this truth -on the order, and happiness of fociety-or from a native and indelible impression on the human heart, which connects the fentiment of the juflice with that of the existence of the deity. Each of thefe ideas involves a new and important confirmation of the truth of the doctrine. Tradition, indeed, has often

*It was taught by the Framins of India, by the Magi of Perfia, by the Druids of Gaul, and in the Colleges of Egypt and Chaldea. It is discovered even among the uncultivated natives of America. And no one can be ignorant that the popular mythology of Greece and Rome contained the elements of a truth fo grand and interefting, in the tribunal of Minos, in the happy fields of Elyfium the feats of perpetual delights to pure and innocent fouls, and in the dreadful abyis of Tartarus, its wheels, its vultures, its flames and the avenging furies that were fuppofed to perfecute the guilty.

clothed it in vague and fanciful forms-it appears in a juft and confiftent light only in the facred fcriptures.

In addition to the proofs drawn from the hiftory and mythology of nations, we derive others from certain original and univerfal fentiments of human nature. All men have a feeling of right and wrong in human conduct-vice is ufually followed by compunction and fear-guilt is accompanied with a fecret conviction of deferved punishment.Whence thefe ideas, if we are not amenable to a law? If we are not accountable to a Supreme Judge? Such a law there is-we fee it written on the face of nature-it is infcribed on the whole order of providence— we feel it impreffed on the heart of man. They fhew, faith the apoftle, the work of the law written in their hearts, the conscience attesting it by its clear and powerful evidence, their thoughts, while they are acting, accufing, or excufing their own conduct.Confcience, like a faithful friend, is continually reminding a good man of the infpection and approbation of his Maker and Judge. But, to the guilty, it often appears

like a boding spectre pointing to the last tribunal. Are then these fentiments vain? Do they conduct to no end? Do they point to no truth? Has God formed the nature of man with no defign? Or, are all his feelings only the artful springs of a delusive mechanism? No-they are founded in truth.— They lead us to the most serious of all truths-that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteoufnefs.*

The fame principle refults from the partial and unequal diftribution of apparent justice which takes place in the course of providence. Although reafon clearly indicates that God muft be the moral as well as phifical governor of the univerfe, yet we look in vain, in this life, for that complete difcrimination of characters, and for that

Every general fentiment of human nature points to truth. The weaknefs of reafon often renders us liable to error in the deductions which it draws from them; yet, at bottom they are always connected with what is true and right. In morals, the general fentiments of mankind are the genuine foundations of virtue, and the chief cement of fociety. They are forever leading man back to his duty in fpite of the force of his paflions, of the miftakes of reafon, and the er rors of theory.