(2) But it may be doubted whether the expectation of a judgment is more a point of natural or of revealed religion. Certainly, if revelation declares, conscience ratifies. The sense of accountability is one of those ultimate facts of human nature, inconceivable upon the modern molecular hypothesis, which any teacher who professed to deal remedially, or even philosophically, with that nature — Socrates as well as Christ — could not but recognize. And so it is stamped deep and legible on every page of the Gospel. We shall be judged according as our works have been ; and the conscience, whatever its testimony may be worth, echoes, " We shall be so judged." Our Master may seem to have gone for a while into a far country, but " He will return," He says, " and reckon with His servants."
2. If the Final Judgment is a certainty, its character becomes most vital to us. Amid the thousand false, low standards upon the commonest matters of morality accepted and acted upon by the young, the pleasure-seeking, the fashionable, the money-getting, the ambitions, it is well to try to accustom the mind to set before itself clearly and distinctly the principles that will govern — that we feel must govern — " the righteous judgment of God " ; well to anticipate, to make ourselves seem to hear that terrible sentence which we know will be passed against us if we are deliberately leading impure, selfish, false, dishonest lives — if we are resisting God's call to repentance and doing despite to the Spirit of Grace.
(1) This Judgment will often mean the reversal of human judgment. A Day of Judgment means that once at least we shall be judged perfectly, that all things will be seen as they really are. Here and now we hide ourselves from one another ; often we hide ourselves from ourselves; as Morley truly says, "People have understandings with themselves here." But then all disguises
200 THE LASH OF THE LAW
will drop off, the heart's counsels will be made manifest, the life's long-kept secrets revealed.
Tj In one of Dean Church's letters, a letter written not long before his death, there is a sublime figure, not unworthy, as Morley says, of the Dante which its author so much loved and so well understood : " I often have a kind of waking dream," he wrote : " up one road, the image of a man decked and adorned as if for a triumph, carried up by rejoicing and exulting friends, who praise his goodness and achievements; and on the other road, turned back to back to it, there is the very man himself, in sordid and squalid apparel, surrounded not by friends, but by ministers of justice, and going on, while his friends are exulting, to his certain and perhaps awful judgment.1
(2) That Judgment which will mean the reversal of many of our judgments will be itself final and irreversible. What may happen between death and the judgment we know not. That which theologians call the intermediate state lies for the most part in shadow, and, save for a few fitful and uncertain gleams, the New Testament itself leaves the darkness unbroken. But all Scripture agrees in representing the judgment of the great day as final. Of any change, of any revision beyond that, it gives no hint, it holds out no hope. Indeed, may we not almost say that in the nature of things it must be final, for it is the judgment of perfect wisdom and perfect love ?
T[ It is impossible to dogmatize. The " larger hope," as people term it, is only a "hope" at the best. The thing about which Scripture leaves us in no shadow of doubt is the immense, critical, and decisive influence of this life. Upon the life we live momentous and eternal issues hang. We do not know what may happen in the endless ages of eternity ; what we do know is that it is the gentle Christ who tells us that the broad way leads to destruction ; that sin entails the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched ; that some go to eternal punishment and some to eternal life. " You seem, sir," said Mrs. Adams to Dr. Johnson, in one of his despondent hours, when the fear of death and judgment lay heavy upon him, "to forget the merits of our Eedeemer." "Madam," replied Johnson, with his usual blunt honesty, " I do not forget the merits of my Eedeemer, but my Eedeemer has said that He will set some on His right hand and some on His left."
1 G. Jackson.
ACTS xxiv. 25 201
Tf I remember as a child seeing my mother examine a piece of cloth or dress fabric in the evening under the gaslight, and then she would say, "Wait until the morning till we see how it looks by daylight." Let us take heed we are not deceived by how things look in the glare and glitter of the lamps of time ; let us resolve to see them in the clear steady radiance of eternity.1
3. Let us thank God that He has made the Judgment to come a matter of revelation.
Tf One who has since passed within the veil often said to me, " I thank God that there is a judgment to come." At the time I could hardly say Amen ! Judgment scarcely seemed to me a theme for a doxology ; yet he was right — it is a thing to thank God for ! It nerves all virtuous endeavour, it is the pulse of patience, the soul of perseverance, the safeguard against the bitterness of despair — this appeal to a higher tribunal. And from the earliest ages the Church of Christ has felt that she could not only solemnly say, but reverently and gratefully sing it too —