III. LrvE TO THE WILL OF Gon, FOR DOTH CHRIST'S JUDGMENT AND CHRIST'S GOSPEL ARE FOR ALL. The point the apostle is here pressing is that these bad men- obese Gentiles and pagans of that day, who find their counterpart and succession in all "''orldly, sensual, selfish men of to-day-will have to give account to him who will judge quick and dead. The last time he mentioned Christ it was as having ascended to the right hand of God; just before that, as having suffered and died and gone to Eades; now, as in the very order in which the Apostles' Creed enshrines the great hiography, he mentions him as}udging the quick and the dead, All the living and all the dead shall stand at that tribunal. " Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." But if all are to be judged, all must have the gospel preached to them; or the judgment would be partial, unjust, unrighteous. "Unto this end," that is, that all may be righteously judged, all have the gospel preached to them. The gates of mercy are as vast as the seat of judgment; the cross of Christ is as stupendous as the great white throne. Hence the good tidings had been preached "to the dead." "Spirits in prison " were visited by the Redeemer; to the dead Chlist goes with his boundless gospel of righteousness and mercy. The myriads in the Roman empire in Petcr's day who died without a single note of the evangel falling on their ears-died in gross corruption and bewildering superstitions of heathenism, are yet to be met with the offers of mercy, with the provisions of the gospel, and with the love of Jesus Christ. So that though according to the flesh-their life on earth-they were judged by men, and rightly judged, as evil and wicked men, they may, if they will yet receive the gospel preached to them, if they will read its blessed writing in the lurid light of the very flames of hell, yet be trophies of its unspeakable grace, and live to God in the spirit. Their life in the flesh was a ruin and a. wreck, a scourge and a curse ;-so they a!'e juilged according to men. But, wondrous ray of hope I their life in the spilit may, :i.fter the purgings of those terrific fires, and through the influence of the gospel of our \ilessed Lord, yet become a life unto God. That is the object and only sufficient end of the preaching of the good tidings of Christ anywhere and at any time-now and here, or then and yonder. Has it led us to live unto God, as the flower lives to the snn, turning to it to paint its petals and to distil its odours and to nourish its exquisite life; as the subject lives to his sovereign, in unflinching and loyal fidelity; as the child lives unto his parent, in loving, watchful, eager obedience? Some men are alive to pleasure, or gain, or ambition, or friendship, and no more. .Are we alive unto God ?-U. R. T.
Vers. 7, 8.-.A solemn fact and urgent duty. "But the end of all things is at hand," etc. These words, which are part of the paragraph that ends with the eleventh verse, naturally follow the exhortation on vers. 3-6-an exhortation to pure living, and this because onr past life is long enough for sin and its vanities; notwithstanding that Finful men think your separation from them in spirit and conduct strange; and to pure living, because Christ's judgment and Christ's gospel are for all. The exact point in the argument is this-that even to the dead was the gospel preached; and this is a deep fathomless mystery of }ustice and of grace. But however that may be, you are to remeruber and to realize, that "the end of all things is at hand," etc. Here we note- I. THE PREDICTION OF A SOLEMN FACT. "The end of all things is at hand." There are, as every student of the New Testament Epistles knows, great diversities of opinion as to the aspect of the transitoriness of all things on which Peter was now dwelling, and from which he was enforcing great lessons. It is clear that not only here, but all through his Epistles, he was deeply impressed with the transitoriness of all things. Glance back at the first chapter, and on: Sojourners-" a. little while;" "time of your l!!ojourning;" "All flesh is grass," etc. "Sojourners and pilgrims in the day of visita- tion." Peter seems to have expected now a termination of human histo1y-at least an approaching end of the age. He was old now, nearly seventy. He came to Rome on the eve of the conflagration of the city by Nero. He felt himself growing old-a prisoner hounded on to the dea.1-h of martyrdom like the Master who preceded him; and, getting to the end of all things, discerns in the corruptions of the Roman empire indications of ruin-" the end of all things." He discerns, too, the end of Judaism, of ceremonial, of institutions; germs perishing; and the scattering of Christians; the eoo of all things to the Church-personally, in the empire, in systelJls, Whether "the OH. 1v. 1-19.J THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. 197