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SERMON CLXVI.

TES RENOTES CONSEQUENCES OF DEATH.-THE FINAL JUDGMENT.

Pes 10-But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.

is Immediate Consequences; and the first of its Remoter ConseIN the three preceding discourses, I have considered Death;

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wit, the Resurrection. I shall now proceed to the conof another of these consequences; to wit, the General

The day consecrated to this great transaction, is in the text styled said to be the day which the Lord hath made; and is called in the the Day of the Lord. The Christian Sabbath is in the 118th Psalm, Christ arose from the dead, finished the work of Redemption, and first chapter of the Apocalypse, the Lord's day. On that day rested from his labours, as God did from his. In honour of this wonderful event, Christ consecrated the first day of the week for ever to himself, as a season of public, religious worship, to all the nations of men. On this day, He has ever been peculiarly present with all his followers, and commanded the blessing to descend upon Zion, even life for ever more.

But the day, mentioned in the text, is his day, in a still higher, and more solemn sense. It is selected from all the days of time, as the Sabbath from those of the week.

It is the final Day; the period of this earthly system; the dy ing-day of this great world; on which its last groans will be heard, its knell sounded through the Universe, and its obsequies celebrated with most awful pomp, and supreme, as well as melancholy grandeur.

It is the Day of universal Judgment; on which the personal concerns of angels, and of men, will be brought to the last trial, before the Judge of the quick and dead, and irreversibly settled for Eternity.

It is the Day in which the Mystery will be finished. All the wonderful, and perplexing, events of providence towards this world will, at this time, be explained to the full conviction of the assembled Universe; so that God will appear just, when He judges, and clear, when he condemns. The secrets of the human heart, the mazes of Providence, and the wonders of the Divine character, displayed in these events, will be unfolded in such a manner, as to stop every mouth, and murmur, for ever.

It is the Day on which the Catastrophe of this earthly system will arrive. The plot immensely great. and wonderful, comprising

innumerable important scenes, and an endless variety of actors, will now be unravelled. The Theatre is a World; the duration of the action is Time; the Actors are all the millions of the race of Adam; the Subject is Redemption; the Hero is the Messiah; the End is the final triumph of Virtue, and the irrevocable over throw of Sin. The Catastrophe, on this day, will be completed, and disclosed; and all the efforts, windings, and intricacies, find their termination. "IT IS DONE," will be proclaimed by the divine Herald to the Universe; and the curtain will be drawn for

ever.

It is the Day on which Christ will be glorified. In this world he appeared as a man, humbled, persecuted, suffering, dying, nailed to the cross, and buried in the grave. Now He will descend from Heaven with the glory of his Father; and will come to be admired by all them that believe, with wonder, and reverence, inexpressible. No more the Babe of Bethlehem; no more a prisoner before a human Judge; no more an expiring victim on the cross; no more a lifeless corpse in the sepulchre; He will sit upon the throne of the Universe, invested with the sceptre of infinite dominion. He will judge both Angels, and men; dispose of all nations at his pleasure; and open, and shut, both Heaven and Hell. Eternity, to all beings, will now be suspended on his nod; and life and death, which will know no end, will be conveyed by his voice. All beings will be as nothing before him; and will be justly counted unto him as less than nothing, and vanity. He will speak; and it will be done: he will command; and it will stand for ever.

On this Day He will glorify his Justice, in the sight of the Universe. He will show, beyond denial, to the consciences of impenitent beings, that their ruin was derived from themselves; that their sin is just as evil and odious, as he has declared it to be in the Scriptures; and that it is equitably punished with everlasting destruction from his presence, and the glory of his power.

On this Day He will glorify his Kindness, in the deliverance of all his followers from guilt and perdition. His compassion to this ruined world; his overflowing mercy to them, who believed in him, chose him as their Saviour, and obeyed his voice; will now be manifested with supreme, and eternal splendour. The uni verse will perceive, that he chose them as his own, with perfect propriety while they with astonishment and rapture will remember the love, with which he loved them, and gave himself for them; the tenderness, with which he preserved them from temptations, and enemies; the affection, with which he still bears them on his heart; and the Divine promises, which, while they lived in the present world, conveyed to them immortal life, and are now to be fulfilled in a manner, which no eye hath seen, and no mind conceived.

its

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his Intelligent creatures.

the De Hill glorify his Omniscience. He will show, that he hath searched the hearts, and tried the reins of virtues wachther have exercised, the motives by which they have the crew of men. The sins which they have committed, the cance, as objects, intended to be clearly seen, are by ourretribbon for their various conduct, he will set in the light of his been governed and the rewards which will constitute an equitable selves placed in the sunbeams. It will then appear, that he knew whence innumerable streams have flowed, and will forever flow, to all his works from the beginning; and is that occan of knowledge, clearly discover, that he is Jesus Christ; the same yesterday, toOn this Day, He will glorify his Immutability. Now he will his law, his promises, and his threatenings; of the system of Reter, will be found to have been the only language of his Word; of day, and for ever. Truth, the moral Immutability of his characbave trusted in him, and how foolishly sinners have refused to becourse, the Universe will distinctly see how wisely his followers here his declarations. Finally, On this Day, He will glorify his Power. The most awits infinite blessings to the eternal enjoyment of his children; and ful and convincing evidence will be furnished, that He has the keys of Death and of Hades, Heaven, at his command, will open all

able

demption,

and of the terms, on which it is proffered to man. Of

the doors of hell, at his bidding, will close on its guilty, and miserinhabitants. None will be able to stay his hand, or dare to say wala him, What doest thou? From his face the heavens and the earth ill flee away; and at his word, new heavens, and a new earth, wherein righteousness shall dwell for ever, will spring up in their

stead.

This awful Day will come, as a thief, in the night. A thief comes in the hour of peace and security; when the house is defenceless, and the family buried in sleep. The first notice of his arrival is the sound of his breaking up, or the noise of his ravages. He comes, also, unexpectedly: he comes only to invade, distress, and destroy. In this unexpected, and dreadful manner, will the Day of the Lord come.

Mankind, according to the representations of St. John, will, at the period which precedes the final Judgment, be sunk in degeneracy and pollution. The glorious effects of the millennium will have ceased; and the world returned to a degeneracy, like that, which existed immediately before the deluge. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, will have regained their full dominion over the human race; and Religion prepared her final flight to her native heaven. Strong in their numbers, their power, and their pride; sunk in sense, and profligacy; and burning with intense hatred to God, and his children; the nations who are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, will be

gathered together to battle against the Christians, remaining in the world; will go up on the breadth of the earth; and compass the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city. Exulting in the fullest confidence of their final extinction, this army of Scoffers will exclaim with triumphant insolence, Where is the promise of his coming? For, since the Fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. In this night of stapidity and sin, this season of spiritual slumber, the final Day will arrive. In a moment it will burst on the astonished world; break the last sleep with alarm and terror; and strip guilty men of all their beloved enjoyments, and all their fond hopes of future good. The ancient Christians believed, that the declaration in the text would be literally accomplished. Nor is there any proof, that their interpretation was erroneous. There is no improbability, that the sun, which hid its face at the crucifixion of the Redeemer, will again retire from this stupendous scene; or that the moon and stars will withdraw their shining, and leave the world in deep and melancholy darkness. In this case, the morning of the great Day will be ushered in, not by the cheerful twilight spread over the mountains, but the awful approach of that intense splendour; surrounded by which the Son of God will descend. A new and terrible light will appear in mid-heaven; and, advancing toward the earth, will diffuse such a morning over all its regions, as the Universe has never beheld, and will never behold again.

At this momentous period, the Trumpet of God will sound, as it once sounded when the same glorious Person descended upon Mount Sinai; while all the people, who were in the camp, trembled. At this renewed sound all nations will tremble; and the earth quake to its utmost shores.

At the same period, the Archangel will call to the dead; and awaken them from the long sleep, in which they have been buried. The earth and the ocean will give up the dead, which are in them. The regions of death, and the world of departed spirits, will give up the dead, which are in them. Every grave will open, its dust be re-animated, and living forms be seen rising from its dark chambers, over all the surface of the globe. Those, who are still alive, will also undergo, substantially, the same great change, which has been before undergone by those, who have been dead; and both will be invested with bodies incorruptible, and immortal. The globe will be re-peopled in a moment; and the whole family of Adam, with their Progenitor at their head, will stand up together.

This vast assembly will be divided into two great classes; the righteous and the wicked. The former will rise to the resurrection of life; and the latter will rise to the resurrection of damnation. The Righteous will lift up their heads with exultation and transport; and behold their redemption drawing nigh. Their fears will now be ended; their dangers overcome; their enemies subdued; their sins washed away; and their reward be ready to begin ita

eternal progress. The wicked, on the contrary, will rise with full conviction, that in their life-time they have received all their good things. Time; the world; the gratifications of pride, avarice, and sensuality; the combinations of evil men; the courage and strength, which they have derived from their numbers; their contempt, hatred, and persecution, of good men; and all the bright prospects, which they have cherished of success in sin; have retired behind them, to return no more. The day of enjoyment, and of hope, is past for ever. The day of retribution is come. The Lord of all things, whom they have so often, and so obstinately, disbelieved, despised, and crucified afresh, is now approaching to take vengeance on all them, who in this world knew not God, and obeyed not the Gospel of his Son. With supreme dismay, and anguish, they will call to the rocks, and mountains, to fall on them, and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb.

This Divine Person will now be seen descending from Heaven, in the glory of his FATHER, in his own peculiar glory, and with all his holy Angels. The Shechinah, in which he so often manifested himself to his ancient Church, and in which he ascended after his resurrection, will now surround him with an interchange of the deepest darkness, and light inaccessible. His eyes, as a flame of fire, his countenance, as the sun shineth in his strength, and his voice, as the sound of many waters, will fill all virtuous beings with wonder, awe, and delight, and all sinful ones with amazement and horror.

Around Him, with supreme veneration and transport, the innumerable company of Angels will send a shout of triumph to the distant regions of the Universe; and the happy millions of the Righteous re-echo from this world the joyful acclamation.

To meet Him, his faithful followers will be caught up by Divine power, and their own instinctive energy; and rise as an immense cloud through the air, to be placed in open, distinguished honour, at his right hand. They were not ashamed of him in this world; and he will thus gloriously prove, that he is not ashamed of them in the day of trial. Here they publicly, and steadfastly, confessed him before men, as their Saviour. There He will confess them before the Universe, as his chosen, faithful, and beloved followers.

When the throne of Judgment is set, and the books opened; the wicked will be summoned to his left hand; as a public proof of his indignation against their guilty character. To their view, as well as to that of the Righteous, will rise up in clear remembrance, with unerring discernment, and in the most rapid succession, all the events of their earthly being. The sins of both, the proffers of mercy made in the Gospel, the unbelief and impenitence of the wicked, and the faith and repentance of the Righteous, will now be set in order before their eyes. With a clear and comprehensive glance of thought, Sinners will behold the vast picture of life drawn only in black, with no bright and luminous strokes to relieve the distressed eye. The Righteous, on the contrary, will see their sins