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mentioned, to shew how speedily (as far as we ourselves are concerned) God would have us suppose these great events will take place. We are not told the year is coming-or the day is coming; but the hour is coming; which intimates to us, that we should accustom ourselves to measure our lives by the shortest span. The longest life is divided into hours, which soon fleet away one after another. It appears indeed the intention of God, through every part of his revealed will, to inculcate upon us, and recommend to our constant consideration-the shortness of a mortal life. All the images by which it is represented in scripture, are of the decaying, transitory kind. It is grass that withereth-it is a flower, which fadeth-it is a vapour which vanisheth. The meaning of all which images, is, that God would remove from us all ideas of considering this world as our home: and, therefore, in his holy revelation he always represents 'it as short. All these images therefore of vanishing time, are lessons of mortality. They proclaim the hour is coming, which will put a short period to every thing here. -Consider, therefore, this short period in the light only of time lent to you; and consider for what purposes it is lent: that each fleeting hour may be estimated

mated as a portion of that time, which is to lead you to a happy eternity. Let us not then suffer our hours to fleet past us, one after another, unnoticed. In all cases an hour may be improved-in some it may be of the first importance. When we talk therefore of the shortness of an hour, we mean not to depreciate its value. If we neglect our hours, we can have no value for our time.

BUT let us proceed in this awful history of the dead; and see what is to ensue, when the hour cometh. St. Peter introduces the scene with, wonderful grandeur.-The day of the Lord will come, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat: the earth also, and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up.-Then, as the text tells us, all who are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.

The passage, all who are in the grave, seems immediately to refer to the resurrection of the body-a doctrine, which the gospel very plainly inculcates. Where our souls take their flight, when our bodies lie down in the dust, till the general resurrection, is a question, which hath much employed the conjectures of mankind.

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Some have supposed them to remain in a state of sleep till that time; and that, as we read a thousand years are with God, only as one day, a person may die, and yet his soul may awaken, as it were, instantaneously into judgment, though, ages may have passed between his death and resurrection. Others again have thought, the soul will immediately enter a state of happiness, or misery; though it may not experience so full a degree of either, as after the judgment of the great day while others have supposed it to remain in some middle state.-After all, it is best to refer such curious questions to a future time. If God had thought it necessary for us to have been acquainted with them, he would have revealed them plainly. It seems, however, to be the decisive doctrine of scripture, that whatever may be the immediate state of our souls, our bodies, in some spiritualized form which we understand not, shall be again united to them. And in some parts of scripture a reason seems to be given, that as the soul and body had sinned or acted uprightly together in this world; they might in the next be united, in reward, or punishment. As to the difficulty of gathering up all the particles of human bodies, however dis persed through air, earth, or sea, and other difficulties with regard to the fluctuation of parts,

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and sameness of each body; they can only be difficulties with those, who have not properly considered the omnipotence of that God, who originally created man out of dust, and can no doubt as easily restore him.-The expression therefore, all who are in the grave, seems to include all who are dead; and when the hour cometh, this union of soul and body will take place.

This is an hour indeed of awful visitation to all of dreadful visitation to numbers. All who are in the graze shall hear his voice, and shall come forth. Come forth they must: but with what different feelings! When the hour cometh, and that awful voice, Come forth, shall sound through the regions of the dead; how, think you, will the guilty sinner appear; who has led his life in all the corruptions and wickedness of the world? How will his spirit sink within him, when the very grave itself can no longer afford him refuge; when his many sins, which had always been thrown behind his remembrance, now rise to his conscience, with every circumstance of recollected guilt? Then shall be completely fulfilled that prophetic prophecy, which our bless ed Saviour pronounced over Jerusalem; and which had reference, probably, to the end of the world, when he tells the guilty sinner, he should

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on that day call on the mountains to hide him; and on the hills to cover him. It must not be. Neither hills nor mountains can hide him. must come forth. Dragging all his guilt after him, he must appear in the presence of his Judge.

How different will be the feelings of him, who has led his life on earth, in obedience to God's laws! Full of trust in his Saviour's mercy; full of holy joy, and conscious innocence, the awful voice, Come forth, is to him a joyful voice. It thrills through him, like the messenger of the best news he ever heard. come, I come, my blessed Redeemer: I hear thy voice, I run to meet thy summons; humbly hoping, that my poor endeavours, offered up through thy all-sufficient merits, will procure me pardon before the throne of grace.

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This is the first grand scene, which the text exhibits-all nations of the earth thus summoned in one vast assembly, before their Judge. The pride of wealth will be brought low, and the humility of the poor exalted. Good and bad will make the only distinction among the children of men.

THEN will commence the general inquiry. Our thoughts, our actions, even our idle words, that is, such words, as shew our own corrupt

hearts,

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