The Judgment of Men Compared with the Judgment of God

“With me it is a very thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment; — he that judgeth me is the Lord.”’ 1 Corinrarans, 3,4.

fil. When two parties meet together on the business of adjusting their respective claims, or when, in the language of our text, they come together in judgment, the principles on which they proceed must depend on the relation in which they stand to each other; and we know not a more fatal, or a more deep-laid delusion, than that by which the principles, applicable to the case of a man entering into judgment with his fellow-men, are transferred to the far different case of man’s entering into judgment with his God. Job seems to have been aware of this difference, and at times to have been humbled by it. In reference to man, he stood on triumphant ground, and often spoke of it in a style of boastful vindication. No one could impeach his justice. No one could question his generosity. And he made his confident appeal to the remembrance of those around him

Q* when he says of himself, that he delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him; that the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him, and he caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy; that he put on righteousness, and it clothed him, and his judgment was.as a robe and a diadem; that he was eyes to the blind, and feet. was he to the lame; that he was a father to the poor, and the cause that he knew not, he searched out. On these grounds did he challenge the judgment of man, and actually obtained it. For we are told, because he did all ‘this, that when the ear heard him, then it blessed him, and when the eye‘saw him, it gave witness unte hin.: There is not a more frequent exercise of mind in society, than that by which the members of it form and declare their judgment of each other — and the work of thus deciding is.a work which they all share in, and on which, perhaps, there is net a day of their lives wherein they are not called upon to expend some measure of attention and understanding — and we know not if there be a single topic that more readily engages the conversation of human beings — and often do we utter our own testimony,and hear the testimony of others to the virtues and vices. of the absent — and out. of all this has arisen a standard of estimation — and it is such a standard as many may actually reach, and some have actually exceeded — and thus it is, that it appears to require a very extended scale of reputation to take in all the varieties of human character — and while the lower extremity of it is occupied by the dishonest, and the perfidious, and the glaringly selfish, who are outcasts from general respect; on the higher extremity of it, do we behold men, to whom are awarded, by the universal voice, all the honours of a proud and unsullied excellence — and their walk in the world is dignified by the reverence of many salutations — and as we hear of their truth and their uprightness, and their princely liberalities, and of a heart alive to every impulse of sympathy, and of a manner sweetened by all the delicacies of genuine kindness; — Who does not see that, in thisassemblage of moral graces and accomplishments, there is eneugh to satisfy man, and to carry the admiration of man? and can we wonder if, while we gaze on so fine a specimen of our nature, we ‘should not merely pronounce upon him an honourable sentence at the tribunal of human judgment, but we should conceive of him that he looks as bright and faultless in the eye of God, and that he is in every way meet for his presence and his friendship in eternity?

Now, if there be any truth in the distinction of our text; if a man may have the judgment of his fellows, and yet be utterly unfit for contending in judgment with God; if there be any emphasis in the consideration, that he is God, and not man; or any delusion in conceiving of him, that he is altogether hike unto ourselves, — may not all that ready circulation of praise, and of acknowledgment, which obtains in society, carry a most ruinous, and a most bewitching influence along with it? Is it not pos-Lay sible that on the applause of man there may be reared a most treacherous self-complacency? Might not we build a confidence before God, on this sandy foundation? Think you not, that it is just this ill-supported confidence which shuts out from many a heart the humiliatmg doctrine of the gospel? 4s there no such imagination as that because we are so well able to stand our ground before the judgment of the world, we shall be equally well able to stand our ground before the judgment-seat of the great day? Are there not many who, upon this very principle, count themselves rich and te have need. of nothing? And have you never met with men of character, and estimation in society, who, surrounded by the gratulations of their neighbourhood, find the debasing views of humanity, which are set before us in the New Testament, to be beyond their comprehension; who are utterly in the dark, as to the truth and the justness of such representations, and with whom the voice of God is therefore deafened by the voice and the testimony of men? They see not themselves in that character of vileness and of guilt which he ascribes to them. They are blind to the principle of the text, that he is not a man; and that they may not be able to answer him, though they may be able to meet the every reproach, and to hold out the lofty vindication against every charge, which any one of their fellows may prefer. And thus it is, that many live in the habitual neglect of a salvation which they cannot see that they require; and spend their days in an insidious security, from which no- - thing but the voice of the last messenger, or the

call of the last trumpet, shall awaken them.

To do away this delusion, we shall advert. ‘to two leading points of distinction between

the judgment of men and that of God. There is a distinction founded upon the claims which God has a right to prefer against us, when compared with the claims which our fellow-men have a right to prefer against us ; — and there is a distinction founded upon that clearer and more elevated sense which God has of that holiness without which no man shall see his face, of that moral worth without which we are utterly unfit for the society of heaven.

The people around me have no right to complain, if give to every man his own; or, in other words, if I am true to all my promises, and faithful to all my bargains; and if what! claim as justice to myself, [ mast-scrupulously render to others, when they are in like circumstances with myself. Now, let me do all this, and I earn amongst my fellows, the character of a man of honour and of equity. Did 1 live with such a character in an unfallen world, these virtues would not at all signalize me, though the opposite vices would mark me out for universal surprise and indignation. But it so happens that I live in a world full of corruption, where deceit and dishonesty are common; — where, though the higher degrees of them are spoken of with abhorrence, the lower degrees of them are looked at with a very general connivance; — where the inflexibility of a truth that knows not one art of concealment, and the delicacy of an honour that was never tainted, would greatly signalize me; — and thus it is, that though I went not beyond the strict requirements of integrity, yet by my nice and unvarying fulfilment of them, should I rise above the ordinary level of human reputation, and be rewarded by the most flattering distinctions of human applause.

But again, I may in fact give to others more than their own; and in so doing I may earn the credit-of other virtues. I may gatheran additional lustre around my character, and collect from those around me the tribute of a still louder and more rapturous approbation. 1! may have a heart constitutionally framed to the feeling and the exercise of compassion. I may scatter on every side of me the treasures of beneficence. I may have an eye for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity. I may lay aside a large proportion of my wealth to the service of others, — and what with a bosom open to every impulse of pity, and with an eye ever lighted up by the smile of courteousness, and with a ready ear to all that is offered in the shape of complaint or supplication, I may not go beyond the demands of others, but [ may go greatly beyond all that they have a right to demand, — and if I signalized myself by rendering faithfully to every man ‘his due, — still more shall I signalize myself by a kindness that is never weary, by a liberality that never is exhausted.

Now, we need not offer to assign the precise degree to which a man must carry the exercise of these gratuitous virtues, ere he can obtain for them the good will, and the good opinion of society. We need not say by how small a

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;; x P I 4 i fraction of his income, he may thus purchase the homage of his acquaintances, — at how easy a rate he may send away one person delighted by his affability; or another by the hospitality of his reception; ora third by the rendering of a personal service; or a fourth by the direct conveyance of a present, — or, finally, for what expense he may surround himself by the gratitude of many poor, and the blessings and the prayers of many cottages. We cannot bring forward any rigid computation of this matter. But we appeal to the experience of your own history, and to your observation of others, if a man might not, without any painful, or any sensible surrender of enjoyment at all, stand out to the eye of others ina blaze of moral reputation — if the substantial citizen might not, on the convivialities of friendship, be indulging his own taste, and at the very time be securing from his pleased and satisfied guests, the attestations of their cordiality — if the man of business might not be nobly generous to his friends in adversity, and at the same time be running one unvaried career of accumulation — if the man.of society might not be charming every acquaintance by the truth and the tenderness of his expressions, and at the same time, instead of impairing, be heightening his share of that felicity, which the Author of our being has annexed to human intercourse — if a thousand little acts of accommodation from one neighbour to another, might not swell the tide of praise and of popularity, and yet, as ample a remainder of pleasurable feeling be left to each as before — And even when the sacrifice 15 more

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painful, and the generosity more romantic, and man can appeal to some mighty reduction of wealth as the measure of his beneficence to others, might it not be said of him, -if the life be more than meat, and the body than raiment, that ‘still there is left to him more than he can possibly surrender? that, though he strip himself of all his goods to feed the poor, there remains to him that, without which all is nothingness, — that, a breathing and a conscious man, he still treads on the -face of our world, and bears his part in that universe of life, where the unfailing compassion of God still continues to uphold him, — that, instead of lying wrapt in the insensibility of an eternal grave, he has all the images of a waking existence around him, and all the glories of immortality before him, — that, instead of being withered to. a thing of nought, and gone to that dark and hidden land, where all is silence and deep annihilation, a thousand avenues of enjoyment are still open to him,and the promise of a daily provision is still made sure, and he is free to all the. common blessings of nature, and he is freer still to all the consolations, and to all the privileges of the gospel.

Thus it appears that after I have fulfilled all the claims of men, and men are satisfied, — that after having gone, in the exercise of liberality, beyond these claims, and men. are filled with delight and admiration, — that afler, on the footing of equal and independent rights, I have come into judgment with my fellows, and they have awarded tome the tribute of their most honourable testimony, the footing on which t stand with God still remains to be attended to, and his claims still remain to be adjusted, — and the mighty account still lies uncancelled between the creature and the Creator, — between the man who, in reference to his neighbours, can say, I give every one his own, and out of my own I expatiate in acts of tenderness. and generosity amongst them, and the God who can say, You have nothing that you did not receive, and all you ever gave is out of the ability which I have conferred upon you, and this wealth is not your own, but his who bestowed it, and who new calls upon you to render an account of your stewardship, — between the man, who has purchased by a fraction of his property, the good will of his acquaintances, and the God who asserts his right to have every fraction of it turned into an expression of gratitude, and devoted to his glory, — between the man who holds up his head in society, because his justice, and the ministrations of his liberality, have distinguished him, and the God who demands the returns of duty and of acknowledgment, for giving him the fund of these ministrations, and for giving what no money can purchase, — for putting the principle of life into his bosom, — for furnishing him with all his senses, and, through these inlets of communication, giving him a part, and a property, in alf that is around him, — for sustaining him in all the elements of his being, and conferring upon him all his capacities, and all his joys.

Now, what we wish you to feel is, that the judgment of men may be upon your side, and the judgment of God be most righteously

10 against you — ihat, while from the one nothing is heard but admiration and gratitude, from the other, there may be such a charge of sinfulness, as, when set in order before your eye, will convince you, that he by whom you consist, 1s defrauded of all his offerings, — that, while all the common honesties and humanities of social life, are acquitted to the entire satisfaction of others, and to the entire purity of your own reputation in the world, your whole heart and conduct may be utterly pervaded by the habit of ungodliness, — that, while not one claim which your neighbours can prefer, is not met most readily, and discharged most honourably, the great claims of the Creator, over those whom he has formed, may lie altogether unheeded; and he, your constant benefactor, be not loved, — and he, your constant preserver, be not depended on, — — and he, your most legitimate sovereign, be not obeyed, — and he, the unseen Spirit, who pervades all, and upholds all, be neither worshipped in spirit and in truth, nor vested with the hold of a rightful supremacy over your rebellious affections.

God is not man: nor can we measure what is due to him, by what is due to our fellows in society. He made us, and he upholds us, and at his will the life which is in us, will, like:the expiring vapour, pass away; and the tabernacle of the body, that curious frame-work which man thinks he can move at his own pleasure, when it is only in God that he moves, as well as lives, and has his being, will, when abandoned by its spirit, mix with the dust out of which it was formed, and enter again into the uncon. scious glebe from which it was taken. — It was, indeed, a wondrous preferment for unshapen clay to be wrought into so fine an organic structure, but not more wondrous surely than that the soul which animates it should have been created out of nothing; and what shall we say, if the compound being so originated, and so sustained, and depending on the will of another for every moment of his continuance, is found to spurn the thought of God, in distaste and disaf- 1c fection away from him? When the spirit returns to him who sitteth on the throne; when the question is put, Amid all the multitude of your doings in the world, what have you done unto me? When the rightful ascendency of his claims over every movement of the creature is made manifest by him who judgeth righteously; when the high but just pretensions of all things being done to his glory; of the entire heart being consecrated in every one of its regards to his person and character; of the whole man being set apart to his service, and every compromise being done away, between the world on the one hand, and that Being on the other, who is jealous of his honour: — when these high pretensions are set up and brought into comparison with the character and the conduct of any one: of us, and it be inquired in how far we have rendered unto God the ever-breathing grati-. tude that is due to him, and that obedience which we should feel at all times to be our task and our obligation; how shall we fare in that great day of examination, if it be found that this has not been the tendency of our nature at all? and when he who is not a man shall thus enter into judgment with us, how shall we be able to stand?

Amid all the praise we give and receive from each other, we may have no claims to that substantial praise which cometh from God only. Men may be satisfied, but it followeth not that God is satisfied. Under a ruinous delusion upon this subject, we may fancy ourselves to be rich, and have need of nothing, while, in fact, we are naked, and destitute, and blind, and miserable. And thus it is, that there is a morality of this world, which stands in direct opposition to the humbling representations of the Gospel; which cannot comprehend what it means by the utter worthlessness and depravity of our nature; which passionately repels this statement,and that too on its own consciousness of attamments superior to those of the sordid, and the profligate, and the dishonourable; and is fortified in its resistance to the truth as it is in Jesus, by the flattering testimonials which it gathers to its respectability and its worth from the various quarters of human society.

A just sense of the extent of claim which God has upon his own creatures, would lay open this hiding-place of security; would lead us to see, that to do some things for our neighbours, is not the same with doing all things for our Maker; that a natural principle of honesty to man is altogether distinct from a principle of éiifire devotedness to God; that the tithe which we bestow upon others is not an equivalent for a total dedication unto God of ourselves, and of all which belongs to us; that we may present those around us with many an offering of kindness, and

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not present our bodies a living sacrifice to God, which is our reasonable service; that we may earn a cheap and easy credit for such virtues as will satisfy the world, and be utter strangers to theself-denial,and thespirituality,and the mortificdtion, of every earthly desire,and the affection for the things that are above ; — all of which graces entereas essential ingredients into’ th sanctification of the gospel.

But this leads us to the second point of distinction between the judgment of man and that of God, — even his clearer and more elevated sense of that holiness without. which no man shall see his face, and of that moral worth without. which we are utterly unfit for the society of heaven.

Man’s sense of the right and the wrong may be clear and intelligent enough, in so far as that part of character is concerned which renders us fit for the society of earth. Those virtues, without which a community could not be held together, are both urgently demanded by that community, and highly appreciated by it. ‘The morality of our earthly life,isa morality which is in direct subservience to our earthly accommodation; and seeingthatequity,and humanity, and civility, are in such visible and immediate connexion with all the security, and all the enjoyment which they spread around them, it is not to be wondered at, that they should throw over the character of him by whom they are exhibited, the lustre ofa grateful and a superior estimation. And thus it is, that even without any very nice or exquisite refinement, of these virtues, many an ordinary character will pass;~ —

10 and should that character be deformed by the levities, or even by the profligacies of intemperance, he who sustains it may still bear his part among the good men of society, — and keep away from it all that malignity, and all that dishonesty, which have a disturbing effect on the -enjoyments of others, and these others will still retain their kindliness for the good-humoured convivialist, — and he will be suffered to retain his own taste, and his own peculiarities; and, ‘though it may be true, that chastity, and self-control, and the severer virtues of personal discipline and restraint, would in fact give a far ‘more happy and healthful tone to society than at present it possesses, yet this influence is not so conspicuous, and heedless men do not look so far: and therefore it is, that in spite of his many outward and positive transgressions of the divine law, many an individual.can be referred to, who, with his average share of the integrities and the sensibilities of social life, has stamped upon him the currency of a very fair every-day character, who moves among his fellows without disgrace, and meets with acceptance throughout the general run of this world’s companies. If such a measure of indulgence be extended to the very glaring iniquities of the outer man, ‘Jet us not wonder though the errors of the ‘heart, the moral diseases of the spirit, the dis- “organization of the inner man, with its turbulent passions, and its worldly affections, and its ‘utter deadness to the consideration of an overruling God, should find a very general indulgence among our brethren of the species.

Bring a man to sit in judgment over the depravities of ourcommonnature, and unless these depravities are obviously pointed against the temporal good of society, what can we expect, but that he will connive at the infirmities of “which he feels himself to be so large and so habitual a partaker? What can we expect’ but that his mora! sense, clouded as it is against the discernment of his own exceeding turpitude, -will also perceive but dimly, and feel but obtusely, a similar turpitude in the character of others? What else can we look for, than that ‘the man who fires so promptly on the reception of an injury, will tolerate in his fellow all the vindictive propensities? — or, that the man who feels not in his bosom a single movement of principle or of tenderness towards God, will tolerate in another an equally entire habit of ungodliness? — or,that the man whosurrendershimself to the temptations of voluptuousness, will perceive no enormity of character at all in the unrestrained dissipations of an acquaintance? — And, in a word, when I see a man whose rights I have never invaded, who has no complaint of personal wrong or provocation to allege against me, and who shares equally with myself in nature’s blindness and nature’s propensities,! will not be afraid of entering into judgment with him; — nor shall I stand inawe of any penetrating ‘glance from his eye, of any indignant remonstrance from his offended sense of what is righteous, though there be made bare to his inspection all my devotedness’ to the world, and all my proud disdain at the insolence of others, and all my anger at the sufferings of injustice,

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Pas and all my indifference to the God who formed me, and all! those secrecies of an unholy and an unheavenly character, which are to be brought out into full manifestation on the great day of the winding up of this world’s history.

It is a very capital delusion that God is lke unto man, — “Thou thoughtest that I was aliogether such a one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest l tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” ae

Man and man may come together in judgment, and retire from each other in mutual complacency. But when man and God thus come together, there is another principle, and another standard of examination. There is a claim of justice on the part of the Creator, totally distinct from any claim which a fellow creature can prefer, — and while the one will tolerate all that is consistent with the economy and the interest of the society upon earth, the other can tolerate nothing that is inconsistent with the economy and the character of the society in heaven. God made us for eternity. He designed us to be the members of a family which never separates, and over which he himself presides in the visible glory. of all that worth, and of all that moral excellence, which belong to him. He formed.us at first after his own likeness; and ere we can be re-admitted into that paradise from which we have been exiled, we must be created anew in the image of God. These spirits must be made perfect, and every taint of selfishness and impurity be done away from them. Heaven is the place into which nothing that is unclean or unholy can enter; and we are not preparing for our inheritance there, unless there be gathering upon us here, the lineaments of a celestial character. Now, a man may be accomplished in the moralities of civil and of social life, without so much as the semblance of such a character resting upon him. He may have no share whatsoever in the tastes, or in the enjoyments, or in the affections of paradise. There might not be a single trace of the mark of the Lamb of God -upon his forehead. He who ponders so intelligently the secrets of the heart, may be able to discover there no vestige of any love for himself, — no sensibility at all to what is amiable or to what is great in the character of the Godhead, — no desire whatever after his -glory, — no such feeling towards him who is to tabernacle with men, as will qualify him to bear a joyful part in the songs, and the praises of that city which has foundations. Surrounded as he is by the perishable admiration of his fellows, - he is altogether out of affection, and out of acquaintance, with that Being with whom he has to do; and it will be found, on the great day of the doings, and the deliberations of the judgment-seat, that as he had no relish for God in time, so is he utterly unfit for his presence, or for his friendship in eternity.

It is said of God, that he created man after his own image, and it was upon losing this image that he was cast out of paradise: and ere he can be again admitted, the image that has been lost must again be formed on hin. The erand qualification for the society of heaven is, - that each of its members be like unto God. In the selfish and sensual society of earth, there is many a feature of resemblance to the Godhead that is most readily dispensed with; and many an individual here obtains applause and toleration among his fellows, though there is not one attribute of the saintly character belonging to him. Let him only fulfil the stipulations of integrity, and smile benignity upon his friends, and render the alacrity of willing and valuable services to those who have never offended him, and on the strength of such performances as these, may he rise to a conspicuous place in the scale of this world’s reputation. But what would have been the sad event to us, had these been the only performances which went to illustratethecharacter of the Godhead, had he been’a God of whom we could say no more, than that he possessed the one attribute of an unrelenting justice, or even that he went beyond this attribute, in the exercise of kindness to those who loved him, and in acts of beneficence to those who had never offended him? Do we not owe our place and our prospect to the love of God for his enemies? {sit not from the riches of his forbearance and long-suffering, that we draw all our enjoyments in time, and all our hopes for eternity? Is it not because, though grieved with sinners every day, he still waits to be gracious; that he holds out to us, his heedless and wayward children, the beseeching voice of reconciliation; and: puts on such ap aspect of tenderness to those who have not ceased from their birth to yex his

Holy Spirit, and to thwart him every hour by the perverseness of their disobedience? This is the godlike attribute on which all the privileges of our fallen race are suspended; and yet against the imitation of which, nature, when urged by the provocations of injustice, rises in such a tumult of strong and impetuous resistance. It is through the putting forth of this” attribute, that any redeemed sinners are to be found among the other soci¢ty of heaven; but into which no member shall be admitted out of this corrupt world, till there be stamped and realized on his own person, that feature of the divinity to which he owes a distinction so exalted... And tell us, ye men who are so jealous of right and of aonour, who take sudden fire at every insult, and suffer the slightest imagina- ‘tion of another’s contempt, or another’s unfairness, to chase from your bosom every feeling of complacency ; — ye men whom every fancied affront. puts into such a turbulence of emotion, and in whom every fancied infringement stirs up the quick and the resentful appetite for justice — how will you stand the rigorous application of that test by which the forgiven of God are ascertained, even that the spirit of forgiveness is in them, and by which it will be pronounced whether you are indeed the children of the highest, and perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect?

But we must hasten to a close, and will therefore, barely suggest some other matters of seliexamination. We ask you, to think of the facility with which you might obtain the approbation of men, without being at all like unte ta God in the holiness of his character.. We ask you to think of the delight which he takes in the contemplation of what is pure, and moral, and righteous. We ask you to think how one great object of his creation, was to diffuse over the face of it a multiplied resemblance of himself, — and that, therefore, however fit you may be for sustaining your part in the ahenated community of this world, you are most assuredly unfit for the great and the general assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect, if unlike unto God who ts in the midst of them, you have no congenial delight with the Father of all, in the contemplation of spiritual excellence. Now, are you not blind to the glories and the perfections of that Being who realises this excellence to a degree that is infinite? Does not the creature fill up all your avenues of enjoyment, while the Creator is forgotten? In reference to God, is there not an utter dullness and insensibility of all your regards to him? If thus blind to the perception of that supreme virtue and lovliness which reside in the Godhead, are you not, in fact, and by naturean outcast from the Godhead? And an outcast will you ever remain, until your character be brought under some mighty revolutionizing influence, which is able to shift the currency of your desires, and to over-rule nature withall her obstinate habits, and all her iond and favourite predilections.

These are topics of great weight and great pregnancy; but we leave them to your own thoughts, and only ask you at present to look at the vivid illustration of them that may be gathered out of the history of Job. In reference:

to his fellows, he could make a triumphant ap- pealtothehonourand the humanitywhich adorned him, he could speak of the splendid career of beneficence that he had run, — and, in the recollection of the plaudits that had surrounded him, he could boldly challenge the inspection of all his neighbours, and of all his enemies, on the whole tract of his visible history in the world. He protested his innocence before them, and even so long as’ he had only heard of God by the hearing of the ear, did he address him in the language of justification. But when God

at length revealed himself, — when the worth

and the majesty of the Eternal stood before him in visible array, — when the actual presence of his Maker brought the claims of his Maker to bear impressively upon his conscience, if was not merely the ‘presence of the power of God which overawed him; it was the presence of the righteousness of God which convinced him, — and when, from the bright assemblage of all that was pure, and holy, and graceful in

the aspect of the Divinity, he turned the eye.

of contemplation downward upon himself, — O it is instructive to be told, how the vaunting patriarch shrunk into ‘all the depths of self-abasement at so striking a manifestation; and how he said, “J have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and in ashes.”

It is indeed a small matter to be judged of man’s judgment.. He who judges us 1s God. From this judgment there is no escape, and ne

11 hiding-place. The testimony of our fellows will as little avail us in the day of judgment, as the help of our fellows will avail us in the hour of death. We may as well think of seeking a refuge in the applause of men, from the condemnation of. God, as we may think of seeking a refuge in the power or the skill of men, from the mandate of God, that our breath shall depart from us. And, have you never thought, when called to the chamber of the dying man, — when you saw the warning of death upon his countenance, and how its symptoms gathered and grew, and got the. ascendency over all the ministrations of human care and of human tenderness, — when it every day became more visible, that the patient was drawing to his close, and that nothing in the whole compass of art or any of its resources, could stay the advances of the sure and the last malady, — have you never thought, on seeing the bed of the sufferer surrounded by other.comforters than those of the Patriarch, — when, from morning to night, and from night to morning, the watchful family sat at his couch, and guarded his broken slumbers, and interpreted all his signals, and tried to hide from his observation the tears which attested him to be the kindest of parents, — when the sad anticipation spread its gloomy stillness over the household, and even sent forth an air of seriousness and concern upon the men of other families, — when you have witnessed the despair of friends, who could only turn them to cry at the spectacle of his last agonies, and had seen how little it was. that weeping children and inquiring neighbours could do for him, — when you have contrasted the unrelenting necessity of the grave, with the feebleness of every surrounding endeavour to ward it, has the thought never entered within you? How powerless is the desire of man! — how sure and how resistless is the decree of God!

And on the day of the second death, will it be found, that it is not the imagination of man, but the sentence of God that shall stand. When the sound of the last trumpet awakens us from the grave, and the ensigns of the last day are seen on the canopy of heaven, and the tremor of the dissolving elements is felt upon earth, and the Son of God with his mighty angels are placed around the judgment-seat, and the men of all ages and of all nations are standing before it, and waiting the high decree of eternity, — then will it- be found, that as no power of man can save his fellow from going down to the grave of mortality, so no testimony of man can save his fellow from going down to the pit of condemnation. Each on that day will mourn apart. Each of those on the left hand, engrossed by his own separate contemplation, and overwhelmed by’ the dark and the louring futurity of his own existence, will not have a thought or a sympathy to. spare for those who are around him. Each of those on the right hand will see and acquiesce in the righteousness of God, and be made to acknowledge, that those things which are highly esteeme¢c among men are in his sight an abomination. When the Judge and his attendants shall come on the high errand of this world’s destinies, they will come from God. — and the pure principle they shall bring along with them from the sanctuary of heaven, will be the entire subordination of the thing formed to him who formedit. In that praise which upon earthly feelings the creatures offer one to another, we behold no recognition of this principle whatever; and therefore it is, that it is so very different from the praise which cometh from God only. And should any one of these creatures be made on that great day of manifestation, to see his nakedness, — should the question, what have you done unto me? leave him speechless; should at length, convicted of his utter rebelliousness against God, he try to find among the companions of his pilgrimage, some attestation to the - kindliness that beamed from him upon his fellow mortals in the world, — they will not be able to hide him from the coming wrath. In the face of all the tenderness they ever bore him, the severity of an unreconciled lawgiver must have upon him its resistless operation. They may all bear witness to the honour and the generosity of his doings among men, but there is not one of them who can justify him before God. Nor among all those who now yield him a ready testimony on earth will he find a day’s-man betwixt him and his Creator, who ean lay his hand upon them both. y we