advantages and disadvantages on that certain day; if with the same heart, honor, wealth, happiness, home, friends, society, we should ever after unalterably remain. How careful to place ourselves in the best possible position! What character, impenitent one, will you form and wear to appear in at the judgment, never to be changed through all the interminable ages which fellow? At any hour you may drop into eternity, with your present heart, never, never to be improved. Then are you lost irrevocably. Escape, cast off these garments of sin, and put on the garments of light.

II. We shall appear at the judgment with our character only.

In this world men appear with so much that is extraneous to what is really themselves, with so much that is mere outside show, with so many appurtenances, that we seldom see simple men, real human character, uncolored, uncovered, just as it is. It seems to be the very general desire of men, not to be, but to appear to be; to be accredited for something whether possessed or not. I suppose it may with truth be said that one half of the labors and endeavors of this life are to make these appearances; when this is not the aim or the effort, it may still be true that the real character may be covered over and concealed by wealth and titles and honors, and great pretensions. Perhaps I am making a representation which may seem rather too strong. But to a great extent certainly human life is a factitious scene, a great deal is mere profession, gay decoration, superficial show.

We are all dazzled and caught with appearance; we all think too little, and care too little, for substance, for interior solid excellence. At the judgment we shall appear stripped of all disguises and all extraneous adornings-mere human beings, simple men, nothing more; unvarnished, unconcealed men. An existing soul with its renewed body; existence and attributes of existence-being and its character-this will be all. Every thing else will be left behind us. Authors will be there without their renown; poets and philosophers will stand in the same indiscriminate mass with those their cotemporaries, too ignorant to know that they lived. The orator will be there without the charms of his eloquence, without the thrilled and applauding assembly, all simple men, with their character. The king will be there without his crown or sceptre; the slave without his chains. All the men of place and power and pride, without their honors, without their titles, without their worldly elevation. The conqueror will be there without the splendor of his achievements, or the fame of his military prowess. Alexander, Napoleon, Wellington, will stand there by the side of the humblest menial; men no more; men all undistinguished except in the moral qualities of the soul. The young absorbed with tempting pleasures, they that had rolled in wealth, and erected splendid dwellings, shone in equipage, and fared sumptuously every day, will be there with nothing of all they appeared with here, poor as the neglected being that slept upon straw and begged from door to door-mere men, with nothing but their character. How ignorant, how empty, how little is left, when the temporary and the external is gone! when all is gone except vanity, pride, folly, and sin. Ah, how poor will multitudes appear with only their character!

What is my character? this is the important question. All that I can carry with me to the judgment of the great day are the unmasked attributes of my soul. What is my real character in the sight of God? Did a human being ever propose to himself a more momentous inquiry? Your character! It is every thing to you; it is all you have; it decides and settles every thing. Have you the character with which you are willing to stand at the bar of God; which will admit you into heaven!

III. This suggests the third topic of discourse All character is to undergo a full examination at the day of judgment.

We shall appear then for this purpose. The scripture use the language of earthly courts of justice in relation to this our appearance before God for an investigation of our character. Jesus is called the Judge. He is said to descend out of heaven, girded with principalities and powers, and with great glory, to sit upon a throne of judgment, and all the holy angels with him.

Then we are informed, mankind are assembled before him, each for examination and trial. This last audit will be in many respects different from one before a human tribunal. Earthly judges are ignorant and imperfect men; they may unconsciously and without design, prompted by the best intentions even,mistake facts,err in opinion, pronounce a rotten character sound. Passion and prejudice may make their decisions partial and wrong, "a gilded hand may shove by justice." The deeply wicked may have some hopes at the bar of a fellow man, not himself of clean hands. Often do the guilty here go undetected and unpunished. But the Judge at whose bar we shall stand at the last day is not ignorant. We shall find ourselves before one who knows more of us than we know of ourselves, who at an instant glance passes over our conduct and through our hearts. His is an eye of omniscience; nothing belonging to us is concealed from him any more than our persons can be from the eye of each other. And he is not partial; nor is he capable of bribes, of prejudice, of any injustice. No wickedness whatever will escape detection and exposure at the bar of God.

Unlike earthly courts, witnesses and proofs will not be wanted or waited for. Every man will be his own witness. Memory, furnished with new vigor and fidelity, will retrace every step of life, and present every outward act, every moving of the internal spirit in one distinct, full picture; the conscience, wakened from the dead, clear, unbiassed, unerring, will see and know and declare the whole character of the man. If this were not so, no witnesses would be wanted. The Almighty will be witness as well as judge. At his bar it matters not if your deeds were those of a darkness so deep that no eye of a fellow being could penetrate, so distant no ear could hear; no matter if done on some lone isle beyond the possibility of all earthly observation. No matter if memory and conscience were hushed, so as never to reveal. The omnipresent God was with you and heard and saw all that was felt and done. All is perfectly known. You will mark what has been just now intimated, that the examination before the bar of God will extend to the intents of the heart. A trial at an earthly tribunal has little to do except with external actions. If the designs and desires of the spirit within never proceed to development and

to action, what can civil courts do with them? They have no jurisdiction over the movements of the soul. Anger and revenge may rankle there; the vilest passions, the most destructive propensities may be fed and nourished there into fearful strength; and earthly judges may take no cognizance and make no inquiries; they may have no knowledge of the

matter.

This little busy world within, though the spring of all our actions, though the abode of all the elements of our character, yet lying beyond the scrutiny of human tribunals; human laws have no penalties for what dwells there. How different from this our examination at the day of judgment. The character and operations of the heart, the inward temper, the desires, the motives, will be the principal and most important subjects of inquiry. The examination will be no less than a search into the purity and impurity of every emotion that ever existed in the soul. The purity or impurity of every word that the tongue has uttered of every action that the hand has done.

Nor is this the whole investigation. We shall be inquired of as to all that we have neglected to feel or to do. We shall be interrogated as to all the wants of men which we did not relieve; the woes of men which we did not pity; as to all the instances in which we did not weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice; as to all the instances in which we might have blessed a fellow being, but did not ; in which we might have been grateful to God; been filled with the moving of deep affection for his pure character; been exercised with holy trusting in his government and his grace, and were not,-I need not proceed. All that we have felt, all that we have not felt, all that we have said or not said; done and not done, all that we are, and all that we are not, is to be examined and unfolded there-the entire man; the whole character of his heart and his acts.

Who can abide such a scrutiny? Who dares open his inmost soul to the eye of God, and then receive according to his character? What disclosures at the judgment! How confounded will men be to see their secret wickedness all developed to open day. What shame and confusion and alarm, when all their thoughts and feelings throng before them. Oh! the foul abominations that never before saw the light, when all human conduct is declared. The hatreds, the envies, the jealousies, the bitterness, the selfishness, the impurities, the ingratitude, the murmurings, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known. Add no more guilt to your character. Lengthen no farther your fearful catalogue of sins. Stop, stop! Seek forgiveness and mercy of heaven. Seek for Christ's righteousness to cover the multitude of your sins. It is too far that you have gone already. Pause before you farther go.

IV. You have anticipated my next remark A separation will take place among us at the judgment.

There will be then no more mingling and confounding of moral qualities, whether relating to the human heart or to human life. The right and the wrong, the pure and the vile, will stand visibly at distant extremes from each other, and without any relationship, sympathy, or communion.

To every eye of every intelligent being, they will appear at a wide remove from each other-all will feel the broad distinction.

This, so marked, so entire, so seen, so felt, is at the judgment, the grand distinction in which all others are lost. What though one had honors, or had wealth, or had education, or gifted intellect or were prominent in the circle of fashion or pleasure, or were thrifty in business added field to field, and had not where to bestow his goods! Is he right or is he wrong? Is he good, or is he bad, before God? This is the only inquiry at the day of judgment. This, and nothing but this, divides, the universe. Oh, how worthless, how insignificant, at the bar of God, all these worldly possessions and elevations that interest us now! what shadows! A moment they are with us and are gone, leaving no trace, no benefit. To be good, or to be bad! This makes a distinction, indeed; one of immeausrable importance. Neither time, nor death,nor eternity,

can annihilate it. It widens as futurity rolls it ages away.

I have said a separation is to take place at the judgment. We perceive when all is thus unveiled, when all human character is thus laid open, it takes place of itself. Tell us not that the great Judge of all is arbitrary partial, or unjust in the last great separation. This distinction of character, so wide, so perfect, so important, in which all other distinctions are lost, placing men in moral qualities at a distance from each other, no less than Satan is from God, hell from heaven; this, all open and apparent, will of itself produce the final separation, will remove the righteous and the wicked widely and for ever away from each other, as light from darkness. They cannot join in the same employments, they cannot mingle and associate in the same society, cannot dwell in the same world

What an innumerable multitude will be present, and be interested in this scene of separation. All the inhabitants of our country-twentysix millions-collected together, would make a great assembly. Imagine the inhabitants of the whole earth assembled a thousand millions. Add this number to itself, 10, 20, 40, 80, 100 times: what throngs of millions! But you have scarcely begun the computation of all the generations which the stream of time hath poured into the mighty multitude before God. The vast congregation is almost of numbers without number. We are not so much interested, however, in that fact, as in this included in it, that this very assembly will be there to be divided. Oh, to be divided! We have lived and loved in peace; may we not dwell together? These families, may they not dwell together? No, there must be a separation friendship, affection, relationship, are not regarded. No distinction is known but good and bad. The good are not those who have entirely kept the law-none have done this-the good are those who have repented, and had their sins blotted out; believed, and had them forgiven-those who have been renovated, sanctified, accepted.

The separation is between the penitent and impenitent, the believing and the unbelieving. This distinction sunders families; this divides friends, kindred, all. A husband is called to the one side; the wife to the other. Parents are called to one side, children to the other. What partings! Can it be a reality? Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and friends part, not as on earth to reassemble and reunite-they part never again to meet. Oh, what partings! They have

sat at the same board, joyed and suffered and lived as one. They cannot part. They that have lived in brotherhood and affection; in blessed intercourse and sympathy: they cannot part. The father cannot part with his son; brother cannot part from brother. But they must. No, no, no; they need not! The Day of Judgment has not come. They need not; they must not! It is yet a day of grace. I hear words of mercy. Seize the precious hour while it waits; make your peace with God, and you shall not be divided; you yet shall be one.

But many, many will be found who deferred, deferred, and lost their day of grace, and died in all their sins. Thoughtless millions will have been guilty of this folly. Perhaps some of this assembly may after all be among these. The great assemblage before God is divided-the righ teous from the wicked. Then the Omniscient Judge shall say to them on his right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But to them on his left hand he shall say, "Depart from me." Could you hear it, and live? From me! from all mercy, all good, all purity, all happinessfrom the only Saviour of men! Who can, who shall, hear such words from Jesus the Redeemer? Then shall he say to them on his left hand, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels." And these-these, who are these? And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. And is this never to be revoked? No; never! The wicked are never again to smile; the righteous never again to weep.

This is the closing scene of this world's affairs. Here ends all that God wished to do on this theatre, all that he wished to develope. All the nations that were to appear, had appeared; all the petty states that were to rise and fall, had risen and fallen; all the crowns been worn, all the honors been gained, all the servitude and submissions been rendered, justice had done its earthly work; oppression all it could. Righteousness had its day and wickedness. The earth had made its revolutions; the stars run their courses, the seasons been finished, days had been numbered to come not again, the sun and moon had accomplished their purposes, and cease to move and shine. All conversation and intercourse had ceased; all sound of joy or praise or blasphemy was done. All was done. All the world's feverish agitation, ambitious projects, enterprises, distinctions, joys, sorrows, hopes, all had come to pass. Another, a new, an eternal scene is opened.

Thus is the judgment a grand epoch in the progress of God's infinite affairs the day of days. All has been merged in one great distinction of good and bad; and, as we have said, the good are gathered into heaven-the bad shut up in hell. The earth and the works that are therein, are burned up; the heavens are passed away with a great noise. Here we ought to inquire;

1. What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness.

Every Christian is most deeply interested in the solemnities of the judgment day. The most glorious and the most awful of all motives here summon you to righteousness and to duty. "Buried in sleep,"