fore had, of what Omnipotence is, and what Omnipotence can do; and that, therefore, moved by one impulse, every hand will strike the lyre, and every tongue add its peal to the chorus of our text, "Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty!"

But this is not the whole of the chorus-the Church affirms God's ways to be just and true, as well as his works to be great and marvellous. And this is a most important assertion, when considered as called forth by the transactions of the judgment. The judgment will include within its searchings and its sentences the heathen world as well as the Christian, men who have had none but the scantiest portion of revelation, and others who have been blessed with its fulness. And even in a Christian community there is the widest difference between the means and opportunities afforded to different men, some being only just within sound of the Gospel, and others continually plied with its messages. But all this invests with great difficulties the business of judgment. It shows that there must be various standards, one standard for the heathen, and another for the Christian; one for this heathen, or this Christian, another for that. And there is something overwhelming in the thought that the untold millions of the human population will undergo an individual scrutiny; that they will come, man by man, to the bar of their God, and each be tried by his own privileges and powers. We can hardly put from us the feeling, that, in so enormous an assize, there will be cases comparatively overlooked, for which due allowance is not made, or in which the sentence is not founded on a full estimate of the circumstances. But, whatever our doubts and suspicious

beforehand, "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints," is the confession, you observe, which will follow the judgment. It is a confession, we are bold to say, in which the lost will join with the redeemed. The feeling in every condemned man shall be, that, had there been none but himself to be tried, his case could not have received a more patient attention, or a more equitable decision.

And we rejoice in hearing the chorus which is chanted on the glassy and fiery sea. It tells us that God will be justified when He speaks, and clear when He judgeth. As yet I know nothing, whatever I may conjecture, as to the future and eternal condition of the heathen. I cannot tell how the subjects of wholly different dispensations are to be brought to the same bar, and tried by a Judge of whom thousands amongst them never heard as a Mediator. But I learn from the anthem of the Church, that, in being carried on and completed, the last judgment will free itself from all difficulty and all mystery. The thorough justice of the whole proceedings will commend itself at once to every observer: the condemned will be speechless, silence being their most expressive confession; the approved will weave their admiration of the equity into the same song with that of the omnipotence which their God had displayed. We can be certain, therefore, that, as the righteous go away into everlasting life, they will carry with them a triumphant assurance that the Divine dealings with our race have, all along, done honour to the Divine attributes. The great white throne will have been as a sun which hath scattered all darkness, and shed a brilliant illumination over the vast maps of providence and grace. For our own part, therefore, what have we to do but meekly to work

out salvation, not perplexing ourselves with mysteries too deep for our present penetration, but only striving that we may be accepted at the judgment; knowing that then every cloud will be scattered, and that, so overpowering will have been the demonstration, on which we shall have gazed, of the invariable justice, and the immutable faithfulness, of the Lord, that, no sooner shall we have received the harps of God than we shall strike them in celebration of the equity and truth of all his ways, "Just and true are thy ways, O King of Saints."

We have supposed our text uttered immediately after the last judgment. No doubt it strictly belongs to an earlier time, when plagues, analogous, to those which desolated Egypt, shall fall upon the earth, and the great AntiChristian power, which Pharaoh may have typified, shall be consumed by the might of the Lord. But as, at least, the text refers to a season when Christ shall have interfered on behalf of his people, and swept away those who have resisted his authority, there can be nothing wrong in extending it to the last great interference, the final discomfiture of all the hosts of unrighteousness. And the practical thing to be borne in mind, is, that even now we stand on a sea of glass mingled with fire. A sea of glass-for we have no firm footing, and, if we walk not circumspectly, are certain to fall: of glass mingled with fire; for if we fall, the surface may give way, and we are plunged into everlasting burnings. But if it be a sea, on which we shall hereafter stand, this may denote the boundlessness of our existence, the depth of our knowledge. The sea may be of glass, for the floor of heaven may serve as a mirror, reflecting the majesties of God. There may be fire min

gled with the glass, to tell us, that, as fast as the mirror shows us more of God, there will be kindled within us a more intense flame of love and admiration. You must long to walk such a sea as this, to join the orchestra from which shall proceed the sublime song of Moses and the Lamb. Then let all be earnest in obeying the precepts, and appropriating by faith the merits of that Redeemer who is hereafter to be our judge. There is room for all on that mysterious sea; there are harps for all in that mighty orchestra. And, God helping, we may yet all escape the wrath to come, and when the earth and heavens flee away from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, be found amongst those who shall exult and give thanks, and enter with melodious measures the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world.

LECTURE XV.

The Divine Long-suffering.

2 PETER iii. 9.

* The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

THE Apostle is here arguing against the scoffers, who, as he tells us, will arise in the last days of this creation, and who, reasoning from the unbroken course and order of nature, will perversely conclude that no such change can be approaching as that which prophecy associates with the second advent of Christ. Where," say they, "is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." It is not our purpose, on the present occasion, to go into the statements by which the Apostle refutes the infidel argument. We know well enough that the unbroken continuance of the present economy is no proof that the Lord will not come forth from his place in majesty and terror; and we have the sure word of prophecy, that "the Heavens and the earth, which are now, are reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and perdi