clear and unquestionable apportionment of rewards and punishments according to defert which we ought to expect in the government of a righteous and holy God.-How often do we fee vice triumphant, and virtue oppreffed? Injuflice and fraud grow great on the ruins of unfufpecting confidence? Seduction flourish, while betrayed and plundered innocence is abandoned to deftraction, or perpetual tears? What rivers of blood have been fhed by the murderous hands of ambitious tyrants? And how few of them have been arrested, like Belshazzar, by a sentence from Heaven, and in the midst of their impious pleasures, and their imaginary glory, have paid the forfeit of their crimes? On the other hand, do you not fee them adorned with triumphs, crowned with glory, and their crimes themfelves confecrated for virtues, and eternized in hiftory? Where do we find in these events the equity of providence? That rigorous justice in the divine administration which reafon, and the fentiments of nature force us to afcribe to God? Sentiments original, native, indellible--Sentiments that we can no more tear from us than our own

existence-Sentiments not infpired by education-not formed by men-not written, like the variable laws of nations, on brafs and marble, that are corrupted by time, but engraven, by the finger of the Creator in the bottom of our being, and eternal as the foul. If thefe fentiments, then, are fountains of truth-if they conduct us, without obfcurity, to certain and demonftrable, conclufions, cught we not to expect that divine juflice will, at fome period, vindicate the ways of God to man? and that, after this mixed ftate of difcipline which is neceffary to try, and to form the infinite variety of human characters for a fuperior condition of existence, there will reign a clear, decided, and eternal juflice in a future world? Thus, the dictates of reason refer us to a future judgment, and to a final and righteous decifion of the everlafling flates of men.

But, the chriftian refts not his belief of this truth on the probabilities of reason, however flrong, but on the infallible evidence of divine revelation. "God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom

he hath ordained, whereof he hath given affurance unto all men, in that he hath raifed him from the dead." The evidence of this doctrine, therefore, rests upon the fame bafis with the evidence of christianity. The infallible word refers to it in many allegories and parables-afferts it in exprefs declarations-its whole fyftem of duties, promises, and threatenings neceffarily implies it.

Of many parables fpoken by our bleffed Lord that obviously point to this great and awful event, let me recal to you only that of the tares fown in the field along with the good feed,* which he interprets himself

"He that foweth the good feed is the Son of Man-the field is the world-the good feed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one-the harvest is the end of the world -and the reapers are the angels. As,' therefore, the tares are gathered and burnt in the fire, fo fhall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man fhall fend forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniqui

* Matthew xiii. 24, &c. 37-42.

ty, and shall caft them into a furnace of fire there fhall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Of this fearful day there are, also, many ftrong and explicit declarations throughout the word of God. "The heavens, and the earth, faith the apofile Peter, are kept in flore, referved unto fire against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men."* And" Chrift is ordained to be the judge of the quick and the dead."+ Even the figns and fore-runners of that day are distinctly pointed out-the earth fhall be fhaken to its foundations-the stars fhall fall from heaven -the fun fhall be turned into darknefs and the moon into blood, and the powers of the heavens fhall be fhaken. In the midst of this univerfal terror and confternation, Lord fhall defcend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch-angel, and the trump of God," and before him fhall be gathered all nations. How awful then is the certainty of that day when the fecrets of

2 Peter iii. 7. + Acts x. 42. Theff. iv. 16. Matthew xxv. 32.

"the

all hearts fhall be revealed, and the eternal ftates of all men fhall be determined!

I proceed to illuftrate the remaining characters of the judgment fuggested by the apostle in the text-its univerfality—its rightcoufnefs-and the glory of the judge.

II. Its univerfality embraces all men and all their actions.

"And I faw, faith John, a great white throne, and him that fat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was no place for them. And I faw the dead, fmall and great ftand before God. And the fea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and the grave delivered up the dead which were in them."* “All, faith the apoftle of the Gentiles, muft appear before the judgment feat of Chrift"+ princes and conquerors of the earth who thought that all power and judgment was committed to their hands, as well as the innumerable crowd of their fubjects or their

*Rev. xx. II, 12, 13. Romans xiv. 10.