flaves-the infant who has just looked into the world, and then clofed its eyes upon it forever, as well as thofe who have moved in its active scenes, and have a train of works to follow them to the tribunal-the countlefs myriads that in all time have peopled the earth from the first man to the youngest of his fons, all shall appear in one vast asfembly. What an aftonifhing fpectacle! What grandeur does it add to the folemnity of the judgment! The trump of God re-animates the fleeping duft of fo many ages, and calls from their tombs the unnumbered armies of mankind. Far as the eye can extend, you difcern the immenfe mass agitated with hope and fear like the boundless ocean in a ftorm, and moving like fucceffive waves to the tribunal to render their account and receive their fentence.There none are too fmall to escape the penetrating eye of the judge-none are too great to be beyond the reach of his. power. The lords of the earth mingle with their vaffals in an undistinguished crowd. The fceptres with which they ruled the nations-the thrones that boasted to be eternal--the infignia of their vanity L -the monuments of their power-all are crushed, and perifh in the ruins of the univerfe-they are all equally duft and ashes before the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. I add that there all the actions of men, as well as men themselves, fhall be brought into judgment. In that "day God will judge the fecrets of men by Jefus Chrift."* And every idle word that men fhall speak, they fhall give account thereof in the day of judgment."+ "The Lord will Lord will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifeft the counfels of the heart." A book of remembrance is written before him of the whole hiftory of human life. Nothing can escape from his penetrating, and omnifcient eyc. Every covering that felf-deceit had thrown over the heart, fhall be pierced and ftripped off. And actions, thoughts, defigns, that had been long loft from recollection, shall be brought to light, and aston3 C * Romans ii. 16. ifh the mind with its own forgotten history. The errors and transports of a youth paffed away in a continual delirium—the pursuits, the plans, the ardent occupations of middle life-the rooted habits of old age-the use we have made of our time-the employment of our talents-the exceffes of our paffions-the errors of our thoughts—the unaccomplished wifhes of the heart-our omiffions of duty—our actual fins—the fins of others to which we have unhappily contributed, all fhall furround, and attend us to the tribunal, and form, with regard to the guilty, the basis of its fearful decree! Ah! how profoundly fhould we now enter into our own hearts, and fearch to the bottom, in order to purify it, the unknown abyfs of iniquity that is concealed there! With what rigor fhould we judge ourselves that we may not be condemned with God! -Unhappy are they, and in the fure courfe to perdition, who fuffer the guilty dream of life to pass away, without frequent, and ferious recollection-without thorough examination and knowlege of their own character. With infinite aftonishment and confufion of foul will they first learn their own history, and their crimes at the bar of Heaven, in the moment when they are going to be weighed in the balance of eternal juftice. III. This brings to view another, and ftill more important character of the final judgment-God will judge the world in righteoufnefs. This decifive trial fhall turn on a full and complete comparison of the conduct of men with the divine law; and the fentence of the Judge fhall be that only which the law had before pronounced. "I faw, faith John, the dead fmall and great fland before God and the books were opened; and and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."* The books were opened that is, fays an ingenious interpreter, the books of the refpe&tive laws under which they had lived, whether the law of nature-the law of patriarchal revelation-the law of Mofes-or the more pure and perfect law of Chrift. Conforma *Revelations xx. 12. &c. bly to this idea the apofle hath faid, as many as have finned without the written law, fhall perifh without that law, by the fentence only of the law of nature, and as many as have finned in the law fhall be judged by the law."*. -Befide them fhall be placed the book of life the faithful record of human actions from the beginning of time. Thus, on one fide, you fee the laws prefcribed for the conduct of men in the books of the refpective difpenfations under which they have lived; on the other, you see the history of that conduct contained in the book of life. There are written our privileges and opportunities, our mercies and corrections, and the improvement or abuse which we have made of them-There are written the numbers of our years, of our days, of our moments, and the duties, the crimes, the follies and even the omiffions with which they have been filled up, or by which they have been marked. No uncertainty can exift, as at human tribunals, concerning the facts, more than concerning the law. They have all been infcribed, by the impartial hand of God himself, in the eter Romans ii. 12. |