and the duration of the trial are matters which, however we may speculate about them, God has never seen fit definitely to reveal.

In regard to the time when the judgment will begin we are, happily for ourselves, in total darkness. The Scriptures assure us that the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, and that when men shall solace themselves with the cry of peace and safety, then sudden destruction shall come upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. The very ignorance which shuts out the knowledge of the time is the most powerful incentive to diligent preparation. "Watch, for ye know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh."

As to the locality, it has been conjectured,-with how much truth I venture not to say,-from a certain passage in the First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians, in which the apostle says, we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, that the atmosphere which environs the earth will be the scene of the last great assize.

With reference to the duration of the judicial process, it has been the opinion of some that the usual phraseology in which the Scriptures advert to the day of judgment is to be received according to the interpretation of prophecy, and that from the important relation which it will sustain to the present state, the judicial process will mark a new dispensation. Most, however, understand the language of Scripture in its simplest and most obvious sense, and suppose that there will be a definite day in which the final destiny of all mankind shall, with a rapidity not impossible to almighty power and infinite knowledge, be at once

and forever settled. "For He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness."

I. There are two independent but concurrent lines of argument which furnish a powerful rational presumption in favor of a future judgment. In the first place, there is something significant in the fact that the decisions of conscience are felt not to be ultimate, but prospective and premonitory. Conscience represents God in the human soul, and derives its authority entirely from Him. It is God's law, God's court, and God's bar in the nature of man. It is this which gives it its power to bestow peace upon the righteous and to break the carnal security of the ungodly. Were it not for the felt conviction that it refers its decisions to the sanction of a higher tribunal, men might be content to flout its feeble utterances and laugh at its vain protests amidst the furious clamor and the deafening uproar of the passions. Imbecility would render the court ridiculous. But its finger points to another court and another bar. It pronounces its decisions with references to the future. This it is which clothes it with indisputable authority. It is felt to be founded on eternal rectitude and supported by the resources of omnipotence. The pervading conviction is-and it is one which cannot be shaken from the soul-that these solemn sentences will be ratified by the doom of a higher judge, and carried into execution by an invincible arm. There thus arises out of the depths of our moral nature an awful testimony to the certainty of a future and final judgment.

Nor, in the next place, ought the fact to be overlooked that a moral government, embodying in itself as an integral element the distribution of rewards and

punishments is begun but not consummated in the present life. It is clear that the providence of God, both in its natural and moral aspects, proceeds in some degree upon the principle of retribution; but it is equally clear that that principle is not employed to its legitimate extent. There does not appear to be in all cases a precise adaptation of rewards and penalties to the nature of moral actions and the conduct of moral agents. For, although it must be admitted that no suffering, however severe, is undeserved even by the most pious, still the fact cannot be disguised that some godly men are called upon to endure more frequent and protracted trials than some who are ungodly. Here lies the difficulty. And on the supposition that there will be no adequate distribution of retributive consequences in another state than the present, it would be an inexplicable anomaly. But admit the justice of God as the moral governor of mankind, and the presumption is irresistible in favor of the completion of the now existing scheme of retribution in a state beyond the grave. Of that moral government which is here begun, and enforced just enough to establish its leading principles, the consummate exhibition is laid over to another life.

The wicked and reckless transgressor of every principle of right, the man who tramples under foot every obligation to his Maker and every sacred relation to humanity, who curses God to His face, and soaks his hands in the warm and bubbling life-blood of his brother; he who revels in filth and licentiousness, and slaughters on the altar of his lusts the dearest covenants between man and man, who creeps like a viper into the bosom of virtue and fastens his poisoned fangs

upon unsuspecting and helpless innocence,-yes, the monster whom the earth groans under and the heavens frown upon, upon whose head the voice of injured and outraged humanity cries bitterly for vengeance, this man is permitted to flourish like the green bay-tree beside quiet waters, and at last it may be without a struggle or a pang to lie down in peace and die. Is this, can this be, all that the justice of a perfect being requires?

Now turn and look. Here is a man who is actuated by a constant desire to glorify his God; who, with every morning's light and evening's shade gathers around the famly-altar the wife and children whom he recognizes as the gifts of his Heavenly Father; who delights to tread the courts of the Lord's house, to sing His praise and hear His word; who respects every relation which binds him to his fellow-man; who would rather be the "trampled on than the trampler," carrying a heart from whose sweet and brimful fountain are ever gushing streams of charity to all around him; who sits and watches till the breaking day by the dying bedside of his foe; who gently wipes away the orphan's tears, and by timely compassion causes the widow's heart to sing for joy, this man is left to drag out a life of poverty and want and squalid wretchedness, and at the last to roast in the martyr's flame or to stretch himself on the bare, cold earth, and breathe out his spirit without a friend to close his dying eye. Oh, say, is there no future judgment? Is there no tribunal beyond the grave where this man will be rewarded? Yea, there is, there must be. Justice herself rises in indignant majesty at the question, and with gathering brow and portentous finger points to a flaming bar, at which, with equal balances in hand, an impartial and

infallible Judge will rectify the inequalities of life and assign to every soul a proper and incontestable doom.

These powerful presumptions of reason in favor of the fact of a future judgment are so amply sustained by numerous and explicit testimonies of Scripture that I will not pause to signalize them, but pass on to remark in the next place:

II. Jesus Christ will be the final Judge. With respect to judicial authority it is true that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will be the Judge. This the Psalmist magnificently sets forth when he says, "The heavens shall declare His righteousness, for God is Judge Himself. The mighty God, even the Lord hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof." Doubtless the terrors and splendors, the glory and the wrath of absolute and infinite Deity will be gathered around the judgment-throne, and render insufferably august and imposing the pageantry of the tremendous day. There will nothing be lacking to clothe the scene with the authority and sanction of the present Godhead. Heaven will lend its glories and hell its horrors to emphasize the proceedings of the day. Sovereign grace, heavenly mercy, spotless holiness, insulted justice, unerring truth, resistless power, and consuming wrath, will all be present and preside at the solemnities of the occasion.

But, although God in three persons will be the Judge as to original authority, we are assured that the Lord Jesus Christ, as Mediator, will be the Judge in respect to the immediate exercise and dispensation of the judicial prerogative. "God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained." He will appear in human