by Scripture that the dead will be raised, with bodies changed and fitted for that fiery ordeal which they must undergo. In 1 Cor., xv., the apostle says, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall all be changed in a moment at the last trump:" where "the last trump" appears to be that which will change those that remain on earth, after the first trump has raised those that were dead. As the same apostle writes in another place: "We that remain shall not prevent, or precede, those that sleep; the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we that remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord." Two miracles are described: the first, the raising of the dead; the second, the changing of the living. Christianity puts a new dignity even upon the fleshly part of our nature, teaching us that we shall rise with the body, as the companion of the mind, the instrument and partner of its ideas. We shall give an account in the body of the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. Hence arises a new argument for purity and temperance: "the body being dead because of sin, but quickened by Christ, we are therefore to mortify the deeds of the body," and to regard it as "the temple of God." The body is for the Lord.

3. We learn from Scripture that the judgment of all will be simultaneous: all will be judged together. This, also, is a circumstance for which we are indebted solely to revelation. Reason might probably have supposed that every one would be judged separately at the time of his death. But God has reasons for a public judgment: God must not only do right, but be known to do right. Though every one at death enters the region either of happiness or despair, yet it is fit there should be a day, prefigured by the day of visitation at the deluge, at Sodom, and at Jerusalem; a day for the gathering of all men to their own class, as either righteous or wicked. This arrangement, if not necessary, is expedient for the illustration of the Divine justice; thus all may be convinced of the fitness, not only of their own retribution, but of that of others also. The day thus designated sig nifies a portion of duration set apart for this purpose, for which one might suppose an eternity would scarcely be too great, when we consider the immensity of the subject and the multitude of the persons concerned: but we must recollect that God can in a moment let in such light as would equal what, according to our present ideas, it would require eternity to disclose; just as our Saviour could, in a few moments, impress on the woman of Samaria such a sense of his omniscience, that she went away declaring, "He had told her all that ever she did," and demanded, "Is not this the Christ ?" Thus God can make men retrace all the past at once, and set all their misdeeds and secret sins in the light of his countenance.

4. This judgment will be greatly modified by the gospel. Men will be judged, not as innocent or guilty, but as believers or unbelievers: "He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth

not shall be damned." With respect to the heathen, they that sinned without law, as the apostle tells us, Rom., ii., will be judged without law; they will be treated according to the light of natural conscience. But we shall be treated as those who were placed under the gospel, those who were called by God to repentance and faith. To us the terms of probation are changed; the aspect of eternity is altered: to us the terms of the present gospel are those of the last judgment. "The word that I speak," says Jesus Christ, "the same shall judge every man at the last day." He that is now in a state of condemnation, and departs in that state as defined by the gospel, will be condemned at the last day, and he that is justified now will be justified then. The law must stop every mouth, and bring in all the world guilty before God. The question with every one here is, Have you repented? Have you by faith received Jesus Christ, and returned by Him to God? By this standard your relation to God will be decided for eternity. This is the condemning circumstance, that men believe not the gospel, that they neglect the great salvation. Those who reject Christ are remanded and abandoned to the law of nature; with regard to such, "justice will be laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." Now God pleads with us, now He condescends to entreat us to be reconciled to himself through his dear Son. Behold, now is the accepted time! Let none of us neglect it, nor, by such a neglect, incur a double fall-a fall at once from our original and from our second Head!

5. This judgment is final; emphatically the last judgment, from which there can be no appeal: as the text calls it, "eternal judgment." It is universal in its extent, not only with respect to persons, but to the duration of its effects also; it extends to all the destinies of infinite duration; all powers and possibilities of body and soul. "The wicked shall go into eternal fire, the righteous into life eternal." The same word is used, in both the clauses of the original, to express the duration of the punishment or the reward. It is appointed to man, as once to die, so after death to be judged once for all: and no wonder, when we recollect that this judgment introduces a new universe: new heavens and earth are prepared to succeed to it; therefore we may well expect it to be a judgment adequate to the utmost grasp of hope or fear.

6. Lastly, it is represented as a sudden event. Images and expressions of suddenness are accumulated on this subject in Scripture. As a snare shall that day come upon all; as travail upon a woman; as a thief in the night; like the deluge on the generation of Noah; like the fire from heaven on the men of Sodom. "When the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the earth?" Shall He find men looking for his appearance? Alas! He will rather find the multitude saying, "Where is the promise of his coming?" Men will be buying and selling, building and planting, burying their hearts in earthly things, when

the earth, the scene of their anxiety, will be melting away beneath them! Men will be hurrying to strife and battle, when the very stage of their contention will be rent in sunder by the last convulsions of nature! When the din of arms shall be silenced by the voice of the archangel and the trump of God! Men will be meditating iniquity, when the day of judgment overtakes them unprepared! It is when the earth shall be ripe for the vintage of wrath, that the order will be suddenly given, "Thrust in thy sickle and reap!"

The Judge is even now silently coming in the day of death to every individual. Who, then, is seriously prepared for that day of his coming? There are some such wise and happy persons, living even now in the light of eternity, living in a constant respect to the recompenses of the unseen world, living in a course of wisdom which all the revolutions of futurity will confirm; all others are guilty of an infatuation, incalculable, irreparable! forgetful of the truth, that "as it is appointed to all men once to die, so after death is the judgment."

XLI.

REMEMBRANCE IN YOUTH OF JUDGMENT TO COME.* ECCLESIASTES, Xi., 9: Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

[Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, Lord's Day evening, January 6, 1828. Half-yearly address to young persons.]

THE season of youth is peculiarly attractive to every benevolent observer. Our Lord showed a tender regard for the young; and, as He once looked upon an amiable youth, is said to have loved him. In a more important view, the young are the hope of the world; they appear as objects of much attention in Scrip ture: this book of Ecclesiastes, in particular, is chiefly addressed to them. "Wherewithal," asks the Psalmist, "shall a young man cleanse his way ?" and he gives it as a question which admits but of one answer: "by taking heed to himself according to thy word."

I. We shall spend a few words in establishing the true interpretation of the text. This book is often obscure, by its abrupt transitions. Two interpretations have been proposed for the passage before us.

1. It has been viewed by some as grave advice: as though its

From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield.

purport were, "youth is the time for gayety, within the bounds of moderation; a certain decorum attends every age; there is a becoming grace and spirit in the gayety of youth; let it be indulged only in consistency with the remembrance of God and judgment.'

2. But to this interpretation it is objected, by others, that the terms used are too broad and large to allow of this passage being applied in such a serious meaning. The expression, "walk in the ways of thy heart," is never in the Scriptures used in a good, but always in an evil sense: as when Moses (Deut., xxix.) warns the Israelite against saying, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst." So Jeremiah (chapter vii.) speaks of the people "walking in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart." This is not the style of Scripture in speaking of innocent vivacity and pure enjoyment.

Hence

Besides which, in the next words, opening the next chapter, Solomon urges the remembrance of God in the days of youtha very different advice from that of walking in the ways of the heart so that there is a want of consistency, in the interpretation objected to, with the connexion in which it occurs. it appears almost certain that the preacher meant to say, "Although the young man might thus walk in the ways of his own vain desires, yet let him remember God and judgment, and be induced rather to cultivate early piety." The language in the former part of the sentence is merely ironical.

II. We may now proceed to enforce and illustrate this solemn warning. The heart of youth, if it goes in its own way, must go in a way full of moral disorder. Even if disgrace before men is escaped, there will be infinity of evil before God-neglect of God, of prayer, of self-examination, of Scripture. But can it be safe to act as if there were no God? to live in an ungrateful disregard to that Great Being who is ever present with us; who has stamped mementoes of himself on all about us; who has revealed himself to us in his own word; who has opened a stupendous way of approach to himself, in the divinity, the doctrine, the character, the death, the resurrection, and intercession of Jesus Christ? As in darkness deeds of evil abound, so in such a state of living without God in the world, vices are most likely to luxuriate duties sure to be neglected: "the whole head will be found sick, the whole heart faint; from the sole of the foot even to the head there will be no sound part; but wounds, bruises, putrifying sores, neither closed, nor bound up, nor mollified with ointment.' So much ingratitude and apostacy is there in neglect of God, that a day of judgment is appointed for its punishment. With respect to this judgment, remember,

1. Its extent. "All these things" are involved in it. Many of our actions are forgotten by ourselves, not by our Judge; their traces are worn out, not washed out; they will one day rise up in all

their first freshness; you will be compelled to trace your former selves, and read your past history. There will be a manifestation of all hearts and all their secrets.

2. The character of the Judge. Before a judge of our own nature, the criminal shrinks: then the Divine Being will be the Judge; Jesus Christ will sit on the throne: "every eye shall see him!" What a day will that be, when God will judge you! It may be easy to disregard it, while He hides himself and keeps silence; but then He will be all in all-the great and only reality! 3. The severity of this judgment. God is now merciful; He deals with us now through the mediation of the Saviour; but his mercy is limited to time; then He will have judgment without mercy; justice alone will hold the scales; God will meet sinners in the majesty of infinite holiness and wisdom-in a character most awfully severe: his condemnation will dry up all the sources of hope and good; his sentence, "Depart, ye cursed," will be the entrance into an eternity of wo.

4. This judgment will be final and ultimate. With men there is often a higher court of appeal, to which the condemned may resort; but this is emphatically called "eternal judgment." Some, indeed, imagine a release; but the Scriptures know of no such state: they confine all our hope to the present life; they represent this as the only state of probation. "When once the Master has sat down!" How awful to sink where we can never rise again! if filthy, to be filthy still! if separate from God, to remain so still, forever!

5. The last thing regarding this judgment is its certainty. "God will bring thee into judgment.' Heaven and earth may pass away, and shall; but not a word of God can fail. As sure as death is appointed unto all, is judgment also. From the first, Enoch proclaimed it: "God shall come with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment on all; and to convince all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds and words." Paul called upon all men to " repent, because God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world. He made it the first theme of his ministry. Jesus Christ described it fully in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew. The whole New Testament is replete with the doctrine: "We shall all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ."

The remembrance of this great truth will have a most favourable influence on your present as well as future state. How much the fear of death and judgment imbitters existence to many, and renders their whole life an elaborate expedient of forgetfulnessan attempt to escape from thought to trifles, to hide serious objects from their view! There is a handwriting of conscience on the wall, that scares them inwardly: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting!"

Never, my dear young friends, will you be delivered from such a state, never will you attain true peace, until you acquaint yourVOL. IV.-R R