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to action, what can civil courts do with them? They have no jurisdiction over the movements of the soul. Anger and revenge may rankle there; the vilest passions, the most destructive propensities may be fed and nourished there into fearful strength; and earthly judges may take no cognizance and make no inquiries; they may have no knowledge of the

matter.

This little busy world within, though the spring of all our actions, though the abode of all the elements of our character, yet lying beyond the scrutiny of human tribunals; human laws have no penalties for what dwells there. How different from this our examination at the day of judgment. The character and operations of the heart, the inward temper, the desires, the motives, will be the principal and most important subjects of inquiry. The examination will be no less than a search into the purity and impurity of every emotion that ever existed in the soul. The purity or impurity of every word that the tongue has uttered, of every action that the hand has done.

Nor is this the whole investigation. We shall be inquired of as to all that we have neglected to feel or to do. We shall be interrogated as to all the wants of men which we did not relieve; the woes of men which we did not pity; as to all the instances in which we did not weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice; as to all the instances in which we might have blessed a fellow being, but did not; in which we might have been grateful to God; been filled with the moving of deep affection for his pure character; been exercised with holy trusting in his government and his grace, and were not,-I need not proceed. All that we have felt, all that we have not felt, al! that we have said or not said; done and not done, all that we are, and all that we are not, is to be examined and unfolded there-the entire man; the whole character of his heart and his acts.

Who can abide such a scrutiny? Who dares open his inmost soul to the eye of God, and then receive according to his character? What disclosures at the judgment! How confounded will men be to see their secret wickedness all developed to open day. What shame and confusion and alarm, when all their thoughts and feelings throng before them. Oh! the foul abominations that never before saw the light, when all human conduct is declared. The hatreds, the envies, the jealousies, the bitterness, the selfishness, the impurities, the ingratitude, the murmurings, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known. Add no more guilt to your character. Lengthen no farther your fearful catalogue of sins. Stop, stop! Seek forgiveness and mercy of heaven. Seek for Christ's righteousness to cover the multitude of your sins. It is too far that you have gone already. Pause before you farther go.

IV. You have anticipated my next remark. A separation will take place among us at the judgment.

There will be then no more mingling and confounding of moral qualities, whether relating to the human heart, or to human life. The right and the wrong, the pure and the vile, will stand visibly at distant extremes from each other, and without any relationship, sympathy, or communion.

To every eye of every intelligent being, they will appear at a wide remove from each other-all will feel the broad distinction.

This, so marked, so entire, so seen, so felt, is at the judgment, the grand distinction in which all others are lost. What though one had honors, or had wealth, or had education, or gifted intellect, or were prominent in the circle of fashion or pleasure, or were thrifty in business, added field to field, and had not where to bestow his goods! Is he right, or is he wrong? Is he good, or is he bad, before God? This is the only inquiry at the day of judgment. This, and nothing but this, divides the universe. Oh, how worthless, how insignificant, at the bar of God, all these worldly possessions and elevations that interest us now! what shadows! A moment they are with us and are gone, leaving no trace, no benefit. To be good, or to be bad! This makes a distinction, indeed; one of immeasurable importance. Neither time, nor death, nor eternity, can annihilate it. It widens as futurity rolls it ages away.

I have said a separation is to take place at the judgment. We perceive when all is thus unveiled, when all human character is thus laid open, it takes place of itself. Tell us not that the great Judge or all is arbitrary, partial, or unjust, in the last great separation. This distinction of character, so wide, so perfect, so important, in which all other distinctions are lost, placing men in moral qualities at a distance from each other, no less than Satan is from God, hell from heaven; this, all open and apparent, will of itself produce the final separation, will remove the righteous and the wicked widely and for ever away from each other, as light from darkness. They cannot join in the same employments, they cannot mingle and associate in the same society, cannot dwell in the same world. What an innumerable multitude will be present, and be interested in this scene of separation. All the inhabitants of our country-twentysix millions-collected together, would make a great assembly. Imagine the inhabitants of the whole earth assembled-a thousand millions. Add · this number to itself, 10, 20, 40, 80, 100 times: what throngs of millions! But you have scarcely begun the computation of all the genera tions which the stream of time hath poured into the mighty multitude before God. The vast congregation is almost of numbers without number. We are not so much interested, however, in that fact, as in this included in it, that this very assembly will be there to be divided. Oh, to be divided! We have lived and loved in peace; may we not dwell together? These families, may they not dwell together? No, there must be a separation: friendship, affection, relationship, are not regarded. No distinction is known but good and bad. The good are not those who have entirely kept the law-none have done this-the good are those who have repented, and had their sins blotted out; believed, and had them forgiven-those who have been renovated, sanctified, accepted.

The separation is between the penitent and impenitent, the believing and the unbelieving. This distinction sunders families; this divides friends, kindred, all. A husband is called to the one side; the wife to the other. Parents are called to one side, children to the other. What partings! Can it be a reality? Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and friends part, not as on earth to reassemble and reunite they part never again to meet. Oh, what partings! They have

sat at the same board, joyed and suffered and lived as one. They cannot part. They that have lived in brotherhood and affection; in blessed intercourse and sympathy: they cannot part. The father cannot part with his son; brother cannot part from brother. But they must. No, no, no; they need not! The Day of Judgment has not come. They need not; they must not! It is yet a day of grace. I hear words of mercy. Seize the precious hour while it waits; make your peace with God, and you shall not be divided; you yet shall be one.

But many, many will be found who deferred, deferred, and lost their day of grace, and died in all their sins Thoughtless millions will have been guilty of this folly. Perhaps some of this assembly may after all be among these. The great assemblage before God is divided-the righteous from the wicked. Then the Omniscient Judge shall say to them on his right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world " But to them on

his left hand he shall say, "Depart from me." Could you hear it, and live? From me! from all mercy, all good, all purity, all happinessfrom the only Saviour of men! Who can, who shall, hear such words from Jesus the Redeemer? Then shall he say to them on his left hand, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.' And these-these, who are these? And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. And is this never to be revoked? No; never! The wicked are never again to smile; the righteous never again to weep.

This is the closing scene of this world's affairs. Here ends all that God wished to do on this theatre, all that he wished to develope. All the nations that were to appear, had appeared; all the petty states that were to rise and fall, had risen and fallen; all the crowns been worn, all the honors been gained, all the servitude and submissions been rendered, justice had done its earthly work; oppression all it could. Righteousness had its day and wickedness. The earth had made its revolutions; the stars run their courses, the seasons been finished, days had been numbered to come not again, the sun and moon had accomplished their purposes, and cease to move and shine. All conversation and intercourse had ceased; all sound of joy or praise or blasphemy was done. All was done. All the world's feverish agitation, ambitious projects, enterprises, distinctions, joys, sorrows, hopes, all had come to pass. Another, a new, an eternal scene is opened.

Thus is the judgment a grand epoch in the progress of God's infinite affairs- the day of days. All has been merged in one great distinction of good and bad; and, as we have said, the good are gathered into heaven-the bad shut up in hell. The earth and the works that are therein, are burned up; the heavens are passed away with a great noise. we ought to inquire:

Here

1. What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness.

Every Christian is most deeply interested in the solemnities of the judgment day. The most glorious and the most awful of all motives here summon you to righteousness and to duty. "Buried in sleep,"

indeed thrice dead you must be, " if you do not feel yourselves roused by these awful things to diligence and vigor in the christian life." Is there any thing you would not do to rescue your immortality from the doom of ungodly men.

"Let me solemnly urge you to make your calling and election sure, to resist temptation, to overcome iniquity, to keep the faith, that you may finish your course with joy. Look steadfastly, Christian, for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God, even our Saviour, Jesus Christ, that when he, who is the believer's life, shall appear, you may appear with him in glory."

2. But are there not many in this house whose lives furnish no evidence that they are the saints of the most high God? You, too, are interested, yea, most fearfully interested in the great day of the Lord. All shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ. All of us shall hear "the call

of the archangel," and rise from the grave; all of us shall see the Judge descend, the judgment of the final day revealed, the books opened. Who of us will appear there to receive the sinner's last sentence.

That doom is terrific, overwhelming, eternal, irrevocable. Must it be heard? Shall it be? Whose heart does not tremble at the thought that it may be all his own? When the mountains quake, the hills melt, and the earth is burnt up at the presence of God; all the wicked will be filled with consternation and despair. Who can stand before the divine indignation? who can abide the fierceness of his anger? What emotions will be felt by every impenitent man, when it is all over with him, and he is lost-lost irrecoverably! Is he ruined, undone? Is there no hope? Oh, his bursting heart! He cannot bear his doom. He cannot endure everlasting burnings. How would his bosom "heave with delirious ecstacy to hear of another day of grace!" another word of mercy from the Saviour; another opportunity of repentance.

"But no day of grace will ever return to him;" no voice of mercy will ever reach him. He goes to his home, dark, dreadful, eternal. He has gone! Oh! he has gone. "The doors of heaven will be opened no more." "Not one gleam of hope," age after age, as eternity moves on, not one gleam of hope will ever dawn on the regions of sin and sorrow, where he dies, and dies forever!

"Oh, that ye were wise, that ye understood these things, that ye would consider your latter end!"

END OF VOLUME TWENTY-EIGHT.

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BY THE REV. S. T. SPEAR, D.D.,

OF BROOKLYN, N. Y.

LIFE'S CHANGING CURRENT.

"Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer, with all his reign and his might, and the times that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries."-1 CHRONICLES XXIX. 29, 30.

By the times that went over him," the inspired writer obviously means the series of changes in the varying history of David's life, wrought by the progress of time, and completed when the monarch and bard of Israel was gathered unto his fathers. David had been a conspicuous character; many changes had crossed his path; though not wholly unsullied by vice, still many virtues adorned his brow; elevated by a special providence to the cares and perils of a throne, he discharged the duties thereof with fidelity to his God; and having reigned forty years, seven in Hebron, and thirty-three in Jerusalem, "he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor." His acts, his reign, his might, and "the times that went over him," were deemed worthy of a record for transmission to a future age.

In the meditations of this morning, let us then direct our particular attention to the exceedingly suggestive phrase which occurs in the latter of the above verses,— "And the times that went over him." It is obvious that what was true of King David, is substantially true of every man. "The times" are passing over all; and though but few can hope to secure even a brief chapter in the annals of the world, still every one has his own individual life. To him it is an interesting scene, in prospect, and in retrospect it is his life; and "the times" that pass over him, are matters of the most lasting moment to himself. The mutations and modifications of one's being, as he passes down the stream of time; the never ceasing

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