conclusion of the apostle's address, that solemn assurance of the certainty of a future judgment, by which an infinite importance is attached to the knowledge and the practice of those truths which he had always declared. And as we are taught by our church at this season to give to our commemoration of the Redeemer's advent in the flesh, a prospective reference to his second advent in glory and in judgment; may we feel our hearts solemnized to receive that instruction in righteousness, those motives to repentance, those incentives to holiness, which her services are calculated to afford us: "Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light."

We are assured, then, that there is a day fixed for the judgment of the world: "God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness."

It is evident from the acknowledged tenets of the heathen superstitions, that some idea of responsibility entered into their system of religious belief, which, though obscured by the follies of their vain speculations, and involved in the darkness of vague conjecture, still served to show the power of conscience; and that even amid their gross ignorance, this principle was in some measure a guide to their souls. The descriptions, however, of their imaginary state of retribution,

based as they were upon various traditions, and mixed up with the histories and character of their heroes, could add but little of moral influence to the principles of a religion, developed chiefly in allegorical allusions to the operations of nature; and could communicate but little of solemnity to the impressions derived from the worship of a crowd of deities, which, if not personifications of the lowest human appetites, were at least supposed to be actuated by the same feelings and passions as their degraded votaries. It cannot be matter of surprise, then, that in the times of this ignorance, the idea of future judgment, if indeed acknowledged by individuals as a necessary article of belief, was by no means influential as a general principle of conduct. We, who feel conscious how inadequately our minds can grasp the certainty of this important truth, may well imagine how small its influence must have been, when it was matter of mere conjecture.

We are not now left to entertain any doubts upon this momentous subject. We have no room for speculation upon the probability of this judgment to come; no means of escape from the results of this scrutiny, or from the conviction of their reality. The awful period is fixed-fixed in the counsels of that God to whom all his works are known from the creation of the world. Yet the time of its approach is unknown: it will

come as suddenly as once the flood of waters surprised the careless and ungodly, and this appalling uncertainty is not the least awful of the accidents of this tremendous day. "For yourselves," says the apostle to the Thessalonians, "yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." Suddenly, and without the note of preparation, did the Lord come in the days of his flesh to purge the temple of his Father's house; and as suddenly will he come at that time, when he shall appear in his glorious majesty, to execute judgment upon the earth.

But if the certainty of this approaching judgment be explicitly declared, no less explicitly are we informed of the objects of this scrutiny and the results to which it will lead. We have here again no room for speculation; no place for doubt or for conjecture. The judgment is a judgment of moral agents; the scrutiny is a scrutiny of moral character. The whole race of Adam shall be called from their graves to undergo this examination of their lives and actions. "All that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth." Their bodies, no matter when or where they may have been rendered to the dust, shall be raised, and shall be re-united to their souls; and thus each shall be conscious of his own identity; and as in the body the soul acquired that character which shall then remain

unchanged to all eternity; as the members of the body were made instruments either of “righteousness unto holiness, or of iniquity unto iniquity," so will the righteous administration of Almighty justice include, in its unerring sentence, both the bodily and the spiritual nature of man. Those members which were made instruments of iniquity, shall now enhance the punishment of the ungodly; while those which were yielded up as instruments of righteousness, shall be purified from the defilements and weakness of their mortal state, and, being made all-glorious like the Son of God, shall share the happiness of the redeemed soul. This may be indeed a mystery to our finite capacities; but he who made both soul and body, can certainly re-unite them after their separation; and that he will so re-unite them, he has pledged the honour of his word, and has given us, as we shall find in this very text, the strongest proof of his power to accomplish his purpose. And when the rational creatures of his hand are thus assembled before his tribunal, then will commence the great and important business of final retribution. The actions of

every individual shall be examined by the unerring standard of God's law. Every thing that tended to exhibit their excellence, or to aggravate their enormity, will be duly estimated, and their real qualities accurately determined; every thought, every word, every imagination of the heart, which

was never breathed even to those as dear to us as our own souls, will be brought to light, and made to contribute its due proportion to the aggregate of our good or evil. We shall find that there has not been one moment of our lives, which has not, however silently and secretly, been adding something either to our happiness or misery; and that even circumstances which we esteemed trivial, and events, of which we were scarcely conscious, have nevertheless contributed to the formation of our moral character, and thus have exercised a most important influence over our everlasting destiny. The rewards of the righteous may be, and indeed are, the rewards of grace. The punishment of the wicked may be, and indeed is, the infliction of righteous judgment; but these rewards and punishments are no less in accordance with the actual results of the life and conduct of individuals; they are the natural harvest of the seed sown: "He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

But, moreover, the text informs us that this day is appointed for God to "judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." The evident purpose of that manifestation of his will, which God has given us by his Son, is,