they are in like circumstances with myself. | We cannot bring forward any rigid comNow, let me do all this, and I earn amongst putation of this matter. But we appeal to my fellows the character of a man of the experience of your own history, and to honour and of equity. Did I live with such your observation of others, if a man might a character in an unfallen world, these vir- not, without any painful, or any sensible tues would not at all signalize me, though surrender of enjoyment at all, stand out to the opposite vices would mark me out for the eye of others in a blaze of moral reuniversal surprise and indignation. But putation-if the substantial citizen might it so happens that I live in a world full of not, on the convivialities of friendship, be corruption, where deceit and dishonesty are indulging his own taste, and at the very common; where, though the higher de- time be securing from his pleased and sagrees of them are spoken of with abhor- tisfied guests, the attestations of their corrence, the lower degrees of them are looked diality-if the man of business might not at with a very general connivance ;-where be nobly generous to his friends in adverthe inflexibility of a truth that knows not sity, and at the same time be running one one art of concealment, and the delicacy of unvaried career of accumulation-if the an honour that was never tainted, would man of society might not be charming greatly signalize me;-and thus it is, that every acquaintance by the truth and the though I went not beyond the strict require-tenderness of his expressions, and at the ments of integrity, yet by my nice and un-same time, instead of impairing, be heightvarying fulfilment of them, should I rise éning his share of that felicity, which the above the ordinary level of human reputa- Author of our being has annexed to human tion, and be rewarded by the most flatter-intercourse-if a thousand little acts of acing distinctions of human applause. commodation from one neighbour to anBut again, I may in fact give to others other, might not swell the tide of praise and more than their own; and in so doing I may of popularity, and yet, as ample a remainearn the credit of other virtues. I may der of pleasurable feeling be left to each as gather an additional lustre around my cha- before. And even when the sacrifice is racter, and collect from those around me more painful, and the generosity more rothe tribute of a still louder and more rap-mantic, and man can appeal to some mighty turous approbation. I may have a heart reduction of wealth as the measure of his constitutionally framed to the feeling and beneficence to others, might it not be said the exercise of compassion. I may scatter on every side of me the treasures of beneficence. I may have an eye for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity. I may lay aside a large proportion of my wealth to the service of others,-and what with a bosom open to every impulse of pity, and with an eye ever lighted up by the smile of courteousness, and with a ready ear to all that is offered in the shape of complaint or supplication, I may not go beyond the demands of others, but I may go greatly beyond all that they have a right to demand, and if I signalize myself by rendering faithfully to every man his due, -still more shall I signalize myself by a kindness that is never weary, by a liberality that never is exhausted.

of him, if the life be more than meat, and the body than raiment, that still there is left to him more than he can possibly surrender? that, though he strip himself of all his goods to feed the poor, there remains to him that, without which all is nothingness,-that a breathing and a conscious man, he still treads on the face of our world, and bears his part in that universe of life, where the unfailing compassion of God still continues to uphold him,-that instead of lying wrapt in the insensibility of an eternal grave, he has all the images of a waking existence around him, and all the glories of immortality before him,-that instead of being withered to a thing of nought, and gone to that dark and hidden land, where all is silence and deep annihilation, a thouNow, we need not offer to assign the pre-sand avenues of enjoyment are still open to cise degree to which a man must carry the exercise of these gratuitous virtues, ere he can obtain for them the good will, and the good opinion of society. We need not say by how small a fraction of his income, he may thus purchase the homage of his ac- Thus it appears that after I have fulfilled quaintances, at how easy a rate he may all the claims of men, and men are satissend away one person delighted by his af-fied, that after having gone, in the exerfability; or another by the hospitality of cise of liberality, beyond these claims, and his reception; or a third by the rendering men are filled with delight and admiration, of a personal service; or a fourth by the-that after, on the footing of equal and indirect conveyance of a present,-or, finally, for what expense he may surround himself by the gratitude of many poor, and the blessings and the prayers of many cottages.

him, and the promise of a daily provision is still made sure, and he is free to all the common blessings of nature, and he is freer still to all the consolations, and to all the privileges of the gospel.

dependent rights, I have come into judgment with my fellows, and they have awarded to me the tribute of their most honourable testimony, the footing on which

what is due to him, by what is due to our fellows in society. He made us, and he upholds us, and at his will the life which is in us, will, like the expiring vapour, pass away; and the tabernacle of the body, that curious frame-work which man thinks he can move at his own pleasure, when it is only in God that he moves, as well as lives, and has his being, will, when abandoned by its spirit, mix with the dust out of which it was formed, and enter again into the unconscious glebe from which it was taken. It was, indeed, a wondrous preferment for unshapen clay to be wrought into so fine an

I stand with God still remains to be attended to, and his claims still remain to be adjusted, and the mighty account still lies uncancelled between the creature and the Creator,-between the man who, in reference to his neighbours, can say, I give every one his own, and out of my own I expatiate in acts of tenderness and generosity amongst them, and the God who can say, You have nothing that you did not receive, and all you ever gave is out of the ability which I have conferred upon you, and this wealth is not your own, but his who bestowed it, and who now calls upon you to render an account of your stewardship,-organic structure, but not more wondrous between the man who has purchased, by a fraction of his property, the good will of his acquaintances, and the God who asserts his right to have every fraction of it turned into an expression of gratitude, and devoted to his glory,-between the man who holds up his head in society, because his justice, and the ministrations of his liberality, have distinguished him, and the God who demands the returns of duty and of acknowledgement, for giving him the fund of these ministrations, and for giving what no money can purchase,-for putting the principle of life into his bosom,-for furnishing him with all his senses, and, through these inlets of communication, giving him a part, and a property, in all that is around him, for sustaining him in all the elements of his being, and conferring upon him all his capacities, and all his joys.

surely than that the soul which animates it should have been created out of nothing; and what shall we say, if the compound being so originated, and so sustained, and depending on the will of another for every moment of his continuance, is found to spurn the thought of God, in distaste and disaffection away from him? When the spirit returns to him who sitteth on the throne; when the question is put, Amid all the multitude of your doings in the world, what have you done unto me? When the rightful ascendency of his claims over every movement of the creature is made manifest by him who judgeth righteously; when the high but just pretensions of all things being done to his glory; of the entire heart being consecrated in every one of its regards to his person and character; of the whole man being set apart to his service, Now, what we wish you to feel is, that and every compromise being done away, the judgment of men may be upon your between the world on the one hand, and side, and the judgment of God be most that Being on the other, who is jealous of righteously against you-that while from his honour-when these high pretensions the one nothing is heard but admiration and are set up and brought into comparison gratitude, from the other, there may be such with the character and the conduct of any a charge of sinfulness, as, when set in or- one of us, and it be inquired in how far we der before your eye, will convince you, that have rendered unto God the ever-breathing he by whom you consist, is defrauded of gratitude that is due to him, and that obeall his offerings,-that, while all the com-dience which we should feel at all times to mon honesties and humanities of social life, are acquitted to the entire satisfaction of others, and to the entire purity of your own reputation in the world, your whole heart and conduct may be utterly pervaded by the habit of ungodliness,-that, while not one claim which your neighbours can prefer, is not met most readily, and dis- Amid all the praise we give and receiv charged most honourably, the great claims from each other, we may have no claims of the Creator, over those whom he has to that substantial praise which cometh formed, may lie altogether unheeded; and from God only. Men may be satisfied, but he, your constant benefactor, be not loved, it followeth not that God is satisfied. Un-and he, your constant preserver, be not der a ruinous delusion upon this subject, depended on, and he, your most legiti- we may fancy ourselves to be rich, and mate sovereign, be not obeyed, and he, have need of nothing, while, in fact, we are the unseen Spirit, who pervades all, and naked, and destitute, and blind, and miseraupholds all, be neither worshipped in spirit ble. And thus it is, that there is a morality and in truth, nor vested with the hold of a of this world, which stands in direct opporightful supremacy over your rebellious sition to the humbling representations of affections. the Gospel; which cannot comprehend God is not man; nor can we measure what it means by the utter worthlessness

be our task and our obligation; how shall we fare in that great day of examination, if it be found that this has not been the tendency of our nature at all? and when he who is not a man shall thus enter into judgment with us, how shall we be able to stand?

and depravity of our nature; which pas-dishonesty, which have a disturbing effect sionately repels this statement, and that too on the enjoyments of others, and these on its own consciousness of attainments others will still retain their kindliness for superior to those of the sordid, and the profli- the good-humoured convivialist,―and he gate, and the dishonourable; and is fortified will be suffered to retain his own taste, and in its resistance to the truth as it is in Jesus, his own peculiarities; and, though it may by the flattering testimonials which it gathers be true, that chastity, and self-control, and to its respectability and its worth from the the severer virtues of personal discipline various quarters of human society. and restraint, would in fact give a far more A just sense of the extent of claim which happy and healthful tone to society than at God has upon his own creatures, would lay present it possesses, yet this influence is open this hiding-place of security: would not so conspicuous, and heedless men do not lead us to see, that to do some things for look so far: and therefore it is, that in spite our neighbours, is not the same with doing of his many outward and positive transall things for our Maker; that a natural gressions of the divine law, many an indiprinciple of honesty to man, is altogether vidual can be referred to, who, with his distinct from a principle of entire devoted-average share of the integrities and the senness to God; that the tithe which we be- sibilities of social life, has stamped upon stow upon others is not an equivalent for a | him the currency of a very fair every-day total dedication unto God of ourselves, and character, who moves among his fellows of all which belongs to us; that we may without disgrace, and meets with acceptance present those around us with many an of- throughout the general run of this world's fering of kindness, and not present our companies. bodies a living sacrifice to God, which is our reasonable service; that we may earn a cheap and easy credit for such virtues as will satisfy the world, and be utter strangers to the self-denial, and the spirituality, and the mortification of every earthly desire, and the affection for the things that are above;--all of which graces enter as essential ingredients into the sanctification of the gospel.

But this leads us to the second point of distinction between the judgment of man and that of God,—even his clearer and more elevated sense of that holiness without which no man shall see his face, and of that moral worth without which we are utterly unfit for the society of heaven.

Man's sense of the right and the wrong may be clear and intelligent enough, in so far as that part of character is concerned which renders us fit for the society of earth. Those virtues, without which a community could not be held together, are both urgently demanded by that community, and highly appreciated by it. The morality of our earthly life, is a morality which is in direct subservience to our earthly accommodation; and seeing that equity, and humanity, and civility, are in such visible and immediate connexion with all the security, and all the enjoyment which they spread around them, it is not to be wondered at, that they should throw over the character of him by whom they are exhibited, the lustre of a grateful and a superior estimation. And thus it is, that even without any very nice or exquisite refinement of these virtues, many an ordinary character will pass;-and should that character be deformed by the levities, or even by the profligacies of intemperance, he who sustains it may still bear his part among the good men of society,-and keep away from it all that malignity, and all that

If such a measure of indulgence be extended to the very glaring iniquities of the outer man, let us not wonder though the errors of the heart, the moral diseases of the spirit, the disorganization of the inner man, with its turbulent passions, and its worldly affections, and its utter deadness to the consideration of an overruling God, should find a very general indulgence among our brethren of the species. Bring a man to sit in judgment over the depravities of our common nature, and unless these depravities are obviously pointed against the temporal good of society, what can we expect, but that he will connive at the infirmities of which he feels himself to be so large and so habitual a partaker? What can we expect but that his moral sense, clouded as it is against the discernment of his own exceeding turpitude, will also perceive but dimly, and feel but obtusely, a similar turpitude in the character of others? What else can we look for, than that the man who fires so promptly on the reception of an injury, will tolerate in his fellow all the vindictive propensities?-or, that the man who feels not in his bosom a single movement of principle or of tenderness towards God, will tolerate in another an equally entire habit of ungodliness?— or, that the man who surrenders himself to the temptations of voluptuousness, will perceive no enormity of character at all in the unrestrained dissipations of an acquaintance?-and, in a word, when I see a man whose rights I have never invaded, who has no complaint of personal wrong or provocation to allege against me, and who shares equally with myself in nature's blindness and nature's propensities, I will not be afraid of entering into judgment with him;-nor shall I stand in awe of any penetrating glance from his eye, of any indig

́nant remonstrance from his offended sense | has foundations. Surrounded as he is by the of what is righteous, though there be made perishable admiration of his fellows, he is bare to his inspection all my devotedness altogether out of affection, and out of acto the world, and all my proud disdain at quaintance, with that Being with whom he the insolence of others, and all my anger has to do; and it will be found, on the great at the sufferings of injustice, and all my in- day of the doings, and the deliberations of difference to the God who formed me, and the judgment-seat, that as he had no relish all those secrecies of an unholy and an un- for God in time, so is he utterly unfit for his heavenly character, which are to be brought presence, or for his friendship in eternity. out into full manifestation on the great day of the winding up of this world's history. It is a very capital delusion that God is like unto man,-"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver."

Man and man may come together in judgment, and retire from each other in mutual complacency. But when man and God thus come together, there is another principle, and another standard of examination. There is a claim of justice on the part of the Creator, totally distinct from any claim which a fellow-creature can prefer,-and while the one will tolerate all that is consistent with the economy and the interest of the society upon earth, the other can tolerate nothing that is inconsistent with the economy and the character of the society in heaven. God made us for eternity. He designed us to be the members of a family which never separates, and over which he himself presides in the visible glory of all that worth, and of all that moral excellence, which belong to him. He formed us at first after his own likeness; and ere we can be re-admitted into that paradise from which we have been exiled, we must be created anew in the image of God. These spirits must be made perfect, and every taint of selfishness and impurity be done away from them. Heaven is the place into which nothing that is unclean or unholy can enter; and we are not preparing for our inherit ance there, unless there be gathering upon us here, the lineaments of a celestial character. Now, a man may be accomplished in the moralities of civil and of social life, without so much as the semblance of such a character resting upon him. He may have no share whatsoever in the tastes, or in the enjoyments, or in the affections of paradise. There might not be a single trace of the mark of the Lamb of God upon his forehead. He who ponders so intelligently the secrets of the heart, may be able to discover there no vestige of any love for himself, no sensibility at all to what is amiable or to what is great in the character of the Godhead, no desire whatever after his glory, no such feeling towards him who is to tabernacle with men, as will qualify him to bear a joyful part in the songs, and the praises of that city which

It is said of God, that he created man after his own image, and it was upon losing this image that he was cast out of paradise: and ere he can be again admitted; the image that has been lost must again be formed on him. The grand qualification for the society of heaven is, that each of its members be like unto God. In the selfish and sensual society of earth, there is many a feature of resemblance to the Godhead that is most readily dispensed with; and many an individual here obtains applause and toleration among his fellows, though there is not one attribute of the saintly character belonging to him. Let him only fulfil the stipulations of integrity, and smile benignity upon his friends, and render the alacrity of willing and valuable services to those who have never offended him, and on the strength of such performances as these, may he rise to a conspicuous place in the scale of this world's reputation. But what would have been the sad event to us, had these been the only performances which went to illus trate the character of the Godhead,-had he been a God of whom we could say no more, than that he possessed the one attri bute of an unrelenting justice, or even that he went beyond this attribute, in the exercise of kindness to those who loved him, and in acts of beneficence to those who had never offended him? Do we not owe our place and our prospect to the love of God for his enemies? Is it not from the riches of his forbearance and long-suffering, that we draw all our enjoyments in time, and all our hopes for eternity? Is it not be cause, though grieved with sinners every day, he still waits to be gracious; that he holds out to us, his heedless and wayward children, the beseeching voice of reconciliation; and puts on such an aspect of tenderness to those who have not ceased from their birth to vex his Holy Spirit, and to thwart him every hour by the perverseness of their disobedience? This is the godlike attribute on which all the privileges of our fallen race are suspended; and yet against the intimation of which, nature, when urged by the provocations of injustice, rises in such a tumult of strong and impetuous re sistance. It is through the putting forth of this attribute, that any redeemed sinners are to be found among the other society of heaven; but into which no member shall be admitted out of this corrupt world, till there be stamped and realized on his own

person, that feature of the divinity to which i speak of the splendid career of beneficence he owes a distinction so exalted. And tell that he had run,-and in the recollection of us, ye men who are so jealous of right and the plaudits that had surrounded him, he of honour, who take sudden fire at every could boldly challenge the inspection of all insult, and suffer the slightest imagination his neighbours, and of all his enemies, on of another's contempt, or another's unfair- the whole tract of his visible history in the ness, to chase from your bosom every feel-world. He protested his innocence before ing of complacency;-ye men whom every fancied affront puts into such a turbulence of emotion, and in whom every fancied infringement stirs up the quick and the resentful appetite for justice-how will you stand the rigorous application of that test by which the forgiven of God are ascertained, even that the spirit of forgiveness is in them, and by which it will be pronounced whether you are indeed the children of the highest, and perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect?

them, and even so long as he had only heard of God by the hearing of the ear did he address him in the language of justification. But when God at length revealed himself,— when the worth and the majesty of the Eternal stood before him in visible array,when the actual presence of his Maker brought the claims of his Maker to bear impressively upon his conscience, it was not merely the presence of the power of God which overawed him; it was the presence. of the righteousness of God which But we must hasten to a close, and will, convinced him, and when, from the bright therefore, barely suggest some other mat- assemblage of all that was pure, and holy, ters of self-examination. We ask you, to and graceful in the aspect of the Divinity, think of the facility with which you might he turned the eye of contemplation downobtain the approbation of men, without be- ward upon himself,-O it is instructive to ing at all like unto God in the holiness of be told, how the vaunting patriarch shrunk his character. We ask you to think of the into all the depths of self-abasement at so delight which he takes in the contempla- striking a manifestation; and how he said, tion of what is pure, and moral, and righ-“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the teous. We ask you to think how one great ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; whereobject of his creation, was to diffuse over fore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and the face of it a multiplied resemblance of in ashes." himself, and that, therefore, however fit you may be for sustaining your part in the alienated community of this world, you are most assuredly unfit for the great and the general assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect,-if unlike unto God who is in the midst of them, you have no congenial delight with the Father of all, in the We may as well think of seeking a refuge contemplation of spiritual excellence. Now, in the applause of men, from the condemare you not blind to the glories and the nation of God, as we may think of seeking perfections of that Being who realizes this a refuge in the power or the skill of men, excellence to a degree that is infinite? Does from the mandate of God, that our breath not the creature fill up all your avenues of shall depart from us. And, have you never enjoyment, while the Creator is forgotten? thought, when called to the chamber of the In reference to God, is there not an utter dying man,-when you saw the warning dulness and insensibility of all your re- of death upon his countenance, and how its gards to him? If thus blind to the percep- symptoms gathered and grew, and got the tion of that supreme virtue and loveliness ascendency over all the ministrations of which reside in the Godhead, are you not, human care and of human tenderness,in fact, and by nature an outcast from the when it every day became more visible, Godhead? And an outcast will you ever that the patient was drawing to his close, remain, until your character be brought and that nothing in the whole compass of under some mighty revolutionizing influ-art or any of its resources, could stay the ence which is able to shift the currency of advances of the sure and the last malady, your desires, and to over-rule nature with-have you never thought, on seeing the all her obstinate habits, and all her fond and favourite predilections.

These are topics of great weight and great pregnancy; but we leave them to your own thoughts, and only ask you at present to look at the vivid illustration of them that may be gathered out of the history of Job. In reference to his fellows, he could make a triumphant appeal to the honour and the humanity which adorned him, he could

U

It is indeed a small matter to be judged of man's judgment. He who judges us is God. From this judgment there is no escape, and no hiding place. The testimony of our fellows will as little avail us in the day of judgment, as the help of our fellows will avail us in the hour of death.

bed of the sufferer surrounded by other comforters than those of the Patriarch,when, from morning to night, and from night to morning, the watchful family sat at his couch, and guarded his broken slumbers, and interpreted all his signals, and tried to hide from his observation the tears which attested him to be the kindest of parents,-when the sad anticipation spread its gloomy stillness over the household, and