mankind, attended with solemnities which will greatly augment the keenness of their perceptions; and the bodies of all will be made partakers of the sentence that shall be accorded to their souls. In that day every child of man, from the very beginning to the end of time, will be called forth, and summoned to appear before their God. " The sea will give up the dead which were in it; and death and hell will deliver up the dead which were in them : and all will be judged according to their works : and whosoever is not found written in the book of life, will be cast into the lake of liref." Then will be a separation between the righteous and the wicked, even as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats ; and then shall the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal"." Yes, verily, this separation shall take place; for " the wicked,'' whatever they may now imagine, " shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous'1."]
And now let me endeavour to place before you,
II. The considerations which such a view of the judgment should suggest to our minds —
And surely it should lead us,
1. To inquire into our own real character —
[At that day, the Judge will not determine according to our partial views, but according to his own most righteous law: and, whatever may have been the line chosen by ourselves, he will bring our conduct to that infallible test, and determine our doom in perfect accordance with is.
Now, in that day, the ungodly, of every class, will be sen- tenced to perdition. St. Paul appeals to us respecting this : " Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" And then he guards us against that self- deception to which we are so prone; " Be not deceived:" and then, enumerating a sad catalogue of persons addicted to wickedness, as fornicators, adulterers, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners, he declares that no one of them " shall ever inherit the kingdom of God'." To these may be added " the impenitent" and " unbelieving, as sure to take their part in the lake that burnetii with fire and brimstone V Nor must we omit the unregenerate, even though their lives may have been as exemplary as that of Nicodemus himself: for, " except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God1.*' Care, too, must be taken not to deceive ourselves in
f Rev. xx. 13—15. % Matt! xxv. 16. h Ps. i. 5.
' 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. k Luke xiii. 3, 5. Rev. xxi. 8.
1 John iii. 3, 5.