equity which can be rendered unto them; and a vengeance which, in despite of every plea and every palliation that can be offered for these darkest and most degraded of our brethren, can be righteously inflicted-Making it manifest, that a judgment-seat may be set up on the last day of our world; and that around it, from its remotest corners, all the men of all its generations may be assembled; and that not one of them will be found to have lived without the scope and limits of a jurisdiction, on the principles of which he may rightfully be tried-so as that yet the triumph of God's justice shall be signalized upon every individual; nor will there be a single doom pronounced upon any creature, in any one department of the great moral territory, that is not strictly accordant with this song of Revelation-" Even so, Lord God Almighty! true and righteous are thy judgments; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints."

But let us look nearer home. There is not an exercise more familiar to your own hearts, than that by which you feel the demerits of others, and judge of them accordingly. The very movements of anger within you are connected with a sense of right and wrong-such a sense as evinces you to be in possession of a law, which you can bring to bear in examination and condemnation upon the doings of man; and should this law be evaded through the duplicities and the deceits of selfishness, in its application to yourself-then know

that a principle so universal among mankind, in reference to their judgments the one of the other, is of unfailing operation in the mind of the Deity, and will be applied by Him to all who by the mere possession of a moral faculty prove themselves to be the fitting subjects of His moral cognizance. If in the whole course of your existence, you ever judged another; this renders you at that one time a right and proper subject of judgment yourself; and if this be your daily and habitual exercise, insomuch that any development of vanity or selfishness or unfairness in another is sure to call out from you a feeling of condemnation, then this proves that you are hourly and habitually the rightful subjects of a moral guardianship and a moral jurisdiction. The faculty you have, is but a secondary impress of that superior and pervading faculty which belongs to God, as the judge of all and the lawgiver of all. Be assured that there is a presiding justice in His administration; that there is a moral government founded on a righteousness, the lessons of which are more or less known by all, and the sanctions of which will be accordingly fulfilled upon all. Your very power of judging others, proves that its lessons are in And think not, O

some degree known to you. man which judgest those who do such and such. things, and doest the same, that thou wilt escape the judgment of God.

God, in the day of final account, will find out in the case of every human Being whom He does

condemn, the materials of his valid condemnation. These materials may in a great measure be hidden from us now; and yet the palpable fact of each being able morally to judge another, and to pass his moral opinion upon another, however little he may be disposed to scrutinize himself, forms a very palpable disclosure of the fact, that there is in our hearts the sense of a moral law-a monitor who, if we do not follow him as our guide here, will be our accusing witness hereafter. ing of reprobation, if not resentment towards others of which we are capable, we may gather assurance of the fact, that there does exist within us such a sense of the distinction between right and wrong, as, if not acted on in our own conduct, will be enough to conviet us of a latent iniquity, and to call down upon us a rightful sentence of condemnation.

And from

And from every feelfrom every feeling of

So long as self is the subject of its overseership, the moral sense may be partial or reluctant or altogether negligent of its testimonies. But if it can give those testimonies clearly enough and feelingly enough, when it casts a superintending eye over the conduct of others, this proves that an inward witness could speak also to us, but does not, because we have bribed him into silence. In other words, it will be found on the last day, that we had light enough to conduct us if we would have followed, and to condemn us if we have either refused or wilfully darkened its intimations. So that God will be clear when He speak

eth and justified when He judgeth. He will wipe His hands of every outcast on that great and solemn occasion; and make it evident that the guilt of all the iniquities for which he is punished is at his own door-that there is no unrighteousness of severity with God, but that 'His judgment is indeed according to truth when it is against them who commit such things.'

The apostle affirms his own sureness of this, and with a view to make us sure of it also. The truth is, that a want of belief in God as a Judge, is nearly as prevalent as the want of belief in Christ as a Saviour. Could the one be established within you, it would create an inquiry and a restlessness and an alarm, which might soon issue in the attainment of the other. But the general habit of the world proves, that, in reference to God as a God of judgment, there is a profound and a prevailing sleep among its generations. The children of alienated and degenerate Nature, are no more awake to the law in all the unchangeableness of its present authority, and in all the certainty of its coming terrors-than. they are awake to the gospel in the freedom of its offers, and in the sureness of its redemption, and in the exceeding greatness and preciousness of all its promises. There is just as little sense of the disease as there is little of esteem for the remedy. Theologians accordingly tell us of the faith of the law, and of the faith of the gospel. By the one we believe what the law reveals, in regard to its own requirements

and its own sanctions. By the other we believe what the gospel reveals, in regard to its own proposals and its own invitations and its own privileges. Faith attaches itself to the law as well as to the gospel; and obedience to the gospel as well as to the law. The apostle here speaks of our not obeying the truth-and the psalmist says "Lord, I have believed thy commandments." The truth is, that, among the men of our listless and secure species, there is no realizing sense of their being under the law-or of their being under the haunting control and inspection of a Lawgiver. Their habit is that of walking in the counsel of their own hearts and in the sight of their own eyes-nor do they feel, in the waywardness of their self-originating movements, that they are the servants of another and amenable to the judgment of another. Let a man just attend to the current of his thoughts and purposes and desires, throughout the course of a whole day's business; and he will find how lamentably the impression of a divine superintendence, and the sense of a heavenly and unseen witness, are away from his heart. This will not excuse his habitual ungodliness-due, as we have often affirmed it to be, to the wilful smothering of convictions, which, but for wilful depravity, he might have had. But such being the real insensibility of man to his own condition as a responsible and an amenable creature, it is well that by such strenuous affirmations as those of the apostle, he should be reminded of the sureness wherewith God