reconciled to part. They are not in their present conditions fitted for each other. Shall that body be restored? Can the soul indulge the aspiration ?-Faith comes to our relief. When that flesh shall rise, it shall be the perfect auxiliary of the soul. No intellectual energies shall it depress and clog. Perfect sympathy binds them. They are like the most exactly attuned chords,— as two soft-swelling waves meeting on a sunlit sea, and amidst their own brilliancy and with their own music mingling into one, -twins of inborn and undivided love and will,-double stars moving on one centre!

Let us, then, give all diligence to this end. Let us reject from us every feeling of a low and abject contentedness with religion as the simple means of safety. Give your spirits up to a nobler ambition. He who loves not religion for its own sake, shall never find even the safety which it proclaims. Think how your soul can excel. Forbid not its emulation. Encourage it to seek the station nearest to the throne. Pause not even then. More remains for you to do. Secure a triumph for your dust! As to every seed is given its own body, plant in the grave the germ of glory, honour, and immortality. "Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.” Lay up a precious store for the soul when it is required of you, that you may be "all glorious within ;" and for the outward man when it must rise, that your "clothing may be of wrought gold." Thus will you resemble them who bore all sufferings and persecutions, that "they might obtain a better resurrection"! Thus will you plead His assurance, though in a humbler application, yet scarcely with a restricted meaning,-who, foreseeing the dissolution of His Human Nature by death, the division of his soul from his body, and the resurrection of his body for the return of his soul,-exclaimed: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in that state of separation, nor suffer thy Holy One to see corruption !"

"AND I SAW A GREAT WHITE THRONE, AND HIM THAT SAT ON IT, FROM

WHOSE FACE THE EARTH AND THE HEAVEN FLED AWAY; AND THERE
WAS FOUND NO PLACE FOR THEM. AND I SAW THE DEAD, SMALL AND
GREAT, STAND BEFORE GOD; AND THE BOOKS WERE OPENED: AND
ANOTHER BOOK WAS OPENED, WHICH IS THE BOOK OF LIFE: AND THE
DEAD WERE JUDGED OUT OF THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE WRITTEN IN

THE BOOKS, ACCORDING TO THEIR WORKS. AND THE SEA GAVE UP THE

DEAD WHICH WERE IN IT; AND DEATH AND HELL DELIVERED UP THE
DEAD WHICH WERE IN THEM; AND THEY WERE JUDGED EVERY MAN
ACCORDING TO THEIR WORKS."

SUFFER me to relieve emotions, which the recital of words like these cannot fail to raise, by an allusion to a well known fact.

When Massillon pronounced one of those discourses, which have placed him in the first class of orators, he found himself surrounded by the trappings and pageants of a royal funeral. The temple was not only hung with sable, but shadowed with darkness, save the few twinkling lights of the altar. The beauty and the chivalry of the land were spread out before him. The censers threw forth their fumes of incense, mounting in wreaths to the gilded dome. There sat Majesty, clothed in sackcloth and sunk in grief. All felt in common, and as one. It was a breathless suspense. Not a sound stole upon the awful stillness. The master of mighty eloquence arose. His hands were folded on his

breast. His eyes were lifted to heaven. Utterance seemed denied him. He stood abstracted and lost. At length, his fixed look unbent; it hurried over the scene, where every pomp was mingled and every trophy strewn. It found no resting-place for itself

amidst all that idle parade and all that mocking vanity. Again it settled; it had fastened upon the bier, glittering with escutcheons and veiled with plumes. A sense of the indescribable nothingness of man "at his best estate," of the meanness of the highest human grandeur, now made plain in the spectacle of that hearsed mortal, overcame him. His eye once more closed; his action was suspended; and, in a scarcely audible whisper, he broke the longdrawn pause "There is nothing great, but God."

It would be in vain for me to attempt his power of impression; but it may not be wrong to covet his depth of feeling. And while these words are yet vibrating on your ears, and are harrowing up your souls, I take the abrupt and sublimely affecting sentence and mould it to the present theme,-There is nothing solemn, but Judgment.

66 as

The thunderstorm is solemn: when the lightnings, arrows, shoot abroad;" when the peals startle up the nations; when the dread artillery rushes along the sky. But what is it to that far-resounding crash, louder than the roar and bellow of ten thousand thunders, which shall pierce the deepest charnels, and which all the dead shall hear?

The ocean-tempest is solemn: when those huge billows lift up their crests; when mighty armaments are wrecked by their fury; when the proudest barks are shattered, broken as the foam, scattered as the spray. But what is it to that commotion of the deep, when "its proud waves" shall no more "be stayed," its ancient barriers no more be observed, the largest channels be emptied, and the deepest abyss be dried?

The earthquake is solemn when, without a warning, cities totter, and kingdoms rend, and islands flee away. But what is it to that tremour which shall convulse our globe, dissolving every law of attraction, severing every principle of aggregation, heaving all into chaos and heaping all into ruin?

The volcano is solemn: when its cone of fire shoots to the heavens, crimsoning the zenith with its portentous blaze; when, from its burning entrails, the lava rushes to overspread distant plains and to overtake flying peoples. But what is that to the conflagration, in which all the palaces and the temples and

the citadels of the earth shall be consumed; of which the universe shall be but the sacrifice and the fuel?

Great God! must our eyes see-our ears hear-these desolations and distractions? Must we look forth upon these devouring flames? Must we stand in judgment with Thee? Penetrate us now with Thy fear; awaken the attention, which Thy trump shall not fail to command; surround our imagination with the scenery of that great and terrible day! Let us now come forth from the graves of sin, of unbelief, of worldliness, to meet the overture of Thy mercy, as we must perforce start then from our sepulchres to behold the descending Judge! Search and try us now, that Thou mayest not condemn us then! Let Thy terror now persuade, that it may not then destroy, us!

Yes, it is no illusion. The heavens shall be as the scorched scroll of parchment; this solid earth shall stagger as the drunken man, and cry as the travailing woman. The period was long since determined, when time shall have completed its course, when probation shall have run its measure, and when all the designs of the present system shall be fulfilled: when the bright lights of heaven shall die out and be for ever darkened, when "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat," and "all these things shall be dissolved!"

Remember, that this Judgment can never be modified, can never be remitted, can never be reversed. It is "Eternal Judgment !"

It is the day of God! It is "the judgment of the great day!" "It is the time of the dead, that they should be judged!" "It is the revelation of the righteous judgment of God!"

This Passage is full of terrific grandeur. It is the announcement of that Event in which we all possess the most momentous interest. It is more: it is its vivid representation. It is more: it is its action and evolution. The scene passes before us! It lives to us! We are placed in the midst of it! We recognise the awakened throngs! We hear their piercing cries! We witness the portending signs! We behold their unfolding pomp! How is Nature agitated! The stars fall from heaven! The seas boil in fury! The forests are charred with the enwrapping

blaze! The mountains fall down before the fiery storm, as shrivelled reeds! The proudest works of man crumble into dust! The Judgment is set! Its Seat is reared! The Retinue gathers! The Trumpet sounds! He cometh ! He cometh! The Throne is filled! He calleth to the heavens from above, and to the earth that he may judge his people! "He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth."

Let us consider the scenery, which shall illustrate this august assize: the multitude, that shall be summoned to it: the process, which must direct it.

I. LET US CONSIDER THE SCENERY, WHICH SHALL ILLUS

TRATE THIS AUGUST ASSIZE.

The "throne" is the emblem of royal dignity. "Only," said Pharoah to Joseph, "on the throne will I be greater than thou." It is the symbol of Divine supremacy. "The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all." "His throne is as a fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire." It is a "throne of glory," which He will "not disgrace." It is a "throne of holiness," which He will "remember." It is a throne of mercy, to which we have access. It is a throne, which "is for ever and ever." It is a throne, which is "high" and which is "lifted up." Sometimes "He holdeth back the face of this throne." Sometimes "clouds and darkness are round about Him;""righteousness and judgment," however, are alike its "habitation" and its base.

But this "throne" is new to heaven. It is specially furnished; and He sitteth upon it, who judgeth right.

It is "a great white throne." Refulgent in its purity and righteousness; formed of the fleecy vapours, burnished with the radiance of sun-beams, woven from the garniture of the sky. Sunrise and sunset never imprinted that stately purple, that glowing vermilion, that molten gold. It is vast, shadowy, undefined. No rainbow of the covenant girdles it; no suppliants or penitents sue before it; no pardons are issued from it. It is a tribunal throne. "He hath prepared His throne for judgment."