warning which, if duly and instantly heeded, shall cause a wholly different decision, when you appear at that tribunal whose sentences must be final.

came.

The mountains and the strong foundations of the earth, yea, the whole visible creation, may again be appealed to: they may again be witnesses, when God shall arise to judgment, and call quick and dead to His bar. It gives a very sublime, though awful, character to the last assize, thus to regard it as imaged by the controversy in our text. I see a man brought to the judgment-seat of Christ: the accusation against him is, that he lived a long life in neglect and forgetfulness of God, enjoying many blessings, but never giving a thought to the source whence they Who are witnesses against him? Lo, the sun declares, Every day I wakened him by my glorious shinings, flooding the heavens with evidences of a God: but he rose without a prayer from his couch; and he made no use of the light but to prosecute his plans of pleasure or gain. The moon and the stars assert, that "nightly, to the listening earth," they repeated the story of their origin; but that, though they spangled the curtain which was drawn round his bed, he lay down, as he rose, with no word of supplication; and that often were the shadows of the night used only to conceal his guiltiness from man. Hills and valleys have a voice: forests and fountains have a voice: every feature of the variegated landscape testifies that it bore the impress of a God, but always failed to awaken any reverence for His name. There is not an herb, there is not a flower, which will be silent. The corn is asserting that its ripe ears were gathered without thankfulness: the spring is murmuring that its waters were drawn without gratitude : the vine is testifying that its rich juices were distilled to produce a false joy. The precious metals of the earth are

all stamped with accusation, for they were sought with a guilty avidity: the winds of heaven breathe a stern charge, for they were never laden with praises: the waves of the great deep toss themselves into witnesses, for they were traversed by ships that luxuries might be gathered, but not that Christianity might be diffused. Take heed, man of the world, how thou dost arm all nature against thyself. Be warned by the voice which the inanimate creation is already uttering, and make peace with thine adversary "whiles thou art in the way with him." Thine adversary! and who is this? Not the sun, and not the moon, not the troop of stars, not the forests, not the mountains: these are but witnesses on the side of thine adversary. The adversary Himself-oh! they are words which almost choke the utterance !-the adversary Himself is the everlasting God. Yet He wishes to be your friend: He offers to be your friend: there is nothing but your own determination which can keep you at enmity. By the terrors of the last judgment, by all the hopes, by all the fears, of eternity, do I conjure such of you as have not yet made peace with their God, to turn at once to the Mediator Christ: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself;" and now He beseeches you through us, "Be ye reconciled unto God."

1 2 Cor. v. 19.

SERMON XI

HEAVEN

"And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever."-REV. xxii. 5.

UR position upon earth is represented, as you well

that beings

engaged in a great struggle, but to whom is proposed a vast recompense of reward. The imagery which St. Paul delights to use when illustrating our condition is derived from the public games so famous in antiquity. The competitors in a race, the opponents in wrestling, are the parties to whom he loves to liken himself and other followers of Christ. And the imagery is employed not only as aptly depicting a state of struggle and conflict; but because they who entered the lists in the public games were animated by the hope of prizes which success was to procure; and because, in like manner, it is the privilege of Christians to know that if they be faithful to the end contest will issue in an "exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Shame upon the spiritual combatants? the apostle seems in one place to say, if they can be languid in exertion. A paltry recompense will urge the wrestler

"1

1 2 Cor. iv, 17.

or the runner to submit to painful training, and to strain every muscle. Shall we then, with heaven full in view, grudge the toil or spare the effort which may be needful to secure a portion in its joys? "They do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible."1

If, however, the prize is to produce its just influence in animating to exertion it must be often surveyed, that we may assure ourselves of its excellence, and therefore long more for its possession. The competitor in the games had the honoured garland in sight: if inclined for a moment to slacken he had but to turn his eye on the coronet and he pressed with new vigour towards the goal. It should be thus with the Christian, with the spiritual competitor. He should have his thoughts much on heaven: he should refresh himself with frequent glimpses of the shining inheritance. By deep meditation, by prayerful study of the Scriptural notices of another world, he should strive to prove to himself more and more that it is indeed a good land towards which he journeys. He should not be content with a vague and general belief that the things reserved for those who love God must be worth all the efforts and sacrifices which attainment can demand. This will hardly suffice when set against the pleasures and allurements of the world: he must be able to oppose good to good, and to satisfy himself on the evidence, as it were, of his own affections that he prefers what is infinitely best in preferring the future to the present.

And certainly he may do this. Without speaking unadvisedly or enthusiastically, nay, speaking only the words of soberness and truth, we may safely say that those who muse much on heaven, who ponder its descriptions and strive to image its occupations and enjoyments, are

1 1 Cor. ix. 25.

often privileged with such foretastes of what God hath prepared for His people as serve, like the clusters of Eschol, to teach them practically the richness of Canaan. With them it is not altogether matter of report that the inheritance of the saints is transcendantly glorious: it is already true in part, that, "as they have heard, so have they seen in the city of their God."1 They have waited upon the Lord until, according to the promise of Isaiah, they have been enabled to "mount up with wings as eagles ;"2 they have gazed for a moment on the street of gold, and have heard the harpings of the innumerable multitude.

Now if it be thus of exceeding importance to the Christian that he should often meditate upon heaven, it must be the duty of the minister to bring before him occasionally those descriptions of the world to come which God has been pleased to furnish in His Word. And a very delightful part this is of ministerial duty. We are often constrained to set forth the terrors of the Lord, though natural feeling would make us shrink from dwelling on the vengeance which will surely overtake the careless and unbelieving. We are obliged to insist very frequently on the first principles of Christianity, "laying the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God."3 And it is not a rare thing that sermons have to take a reproachful character, exhibiting the sins and inconsistencies of professors of godliness, upbraiding the defective practice of those who name the name of Christ, and urging them, in no measured terms, to "walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called."4 But it were a great mistake to imagine that the preacher consults his

1 Psa. xlviii. 8.

2 Isa. xl. 31.

4

Eph. iv. 1.

3 Heb. vi. 1.