rebel host also get possession of their own, marked with haggard deformity.

Columns of rising dead now fill all the air, some with shrieks and some with halleluias on their tongues. When they approach the tribunal they divide, these going to the right and those to the left. An awful pause ensues. The books are opened. All the secrets of men are brought forth to light. Their sins of thought, word, and deed are exposed to an astonished universe. All the virtues too of the saints are found faithfully recorded, and are spread out to the view of approving angels. All the intricacies of God's providence are disentangled, and all his dispensations, explained, and that becomes the day of the "revelation of" his "righteous judgment." How gloriously do his wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness now shine in those things which once appeared confused and even hard. Amidst those awful solemnities, with what emotions do the saints look down and behold the earth in flames, which was once the scene of all their trials. With what feelings do the martyrs look down on those places where they were bound to the rack or the cross or the stake. Ah with what eyes do they now behold their persecutors, whom they see convulsed with horrors and crying to rocks and mountains to cover them.

The grand account is taken, and the Judge prepares to speak. With a face beaming like heaven he turns to the right: "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." He turns to the left. A

thousand tempests lower upon his brow. The affrighted ranks fall back on each other and would gladly hide themselves in the eternal deep. Hell hears the sound and trembles through all her coast. "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

O ye children of the immortal King, learn to look with indifference on all the scenes below the sun, and let them all be swallowed up in a view of eternity. How did this view transport the martyrs above their agonies. And where are they now? Do they now repent that they renounced the world and accounted themselves "strangers and pilgrims on the earth?"

Our subject shows the inconceivable happiness of the children of God. They are just on the verge of immortal glory. A few days more and all their sorrows will cease, and they will stand on Mount Zion with harps in their hands and crowns of glory upon their heads. Whatever convulsions shake the world,-whatever judgments perplex the nations, they have abundant reason to "rejoice evermore." Children of God, be much in the contemplation of your future inheritance. Were your eyes constantly fixed on that blessed state, it would be impossible for every trifle to cast you down.— Look on heaven as near. One reason why the view no more affects you, is that you place it at a great distance. Did you know that you were about to enter it to day, the very thought would raise you

to it. Well, the time is near. Perhaps before the sun shall set you will stand on the heavenly hill with Abraham and Moses and David. And if heaven is worth so much, then let nothing else come in competition with it. Tread the world beneath your feet. Let your whole souls be engaged to secure the immortal crown. But above all, if you would be affected with these glorious realities, you must firmly believe the declarations of God's word; for "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

But ye who have no part in these blessings, how "wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked; "doomed to eternal fire, and probably to ever increasing torments: no Father in heaven, and no Saviour but him you have trampled under foot: the implacable enemies of God, and fit to be given over to hellish rage and to the society of devils. What will be your feelings when the splendors of that day shall break in upon your astonished sight, and you shall behold Christians admitted to that glory and you yourselves banished to hell? Would you not then give ten thousand worlds for the place of the meanest slave who has reached the heavenly kingdom? Now you may have salvation "without money and without price," but then it will be too late. O think of it in season. Hasten before the last trump shall awaken you to sleep no more.Arise without delay and put your faces in the dust. Repent and cry for mercy, and submit to God, and stretch out your hands to Christ, or forever die.

VOL. II.

39

SERMON XX.

WHEN I WAS A CHILD I THOUGHT AS A CHILD.

I. COR. XII. 11.

When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things.

In childhood the mind, pleased with every trifle and void of care, vacantly pursues its little pleasures, and, blessed with ignorance of the ills and disappointments of life, looks forward with sanguine hopes to fairy scenes of happiness; while the bright and tearless eye, resting on the outside of things, sees a paradise in every lawn and grove. A recollection of these puerile delights is often cherished with rapture in future years, while the man, forgetful of the frettings and pulings of childhood, dotingly inquires, Why were the former days better than these? But he does not ask wisely concerning this. A virtuous manhood is much more to be desired than the state of children. It is ca