revolt from the parent country; and suppose that colony, after its revolt and wilful separation, were to be characterized by every thing that is good and peaceful and right internally its homes happy, its people obedient, and its laws observed, and every thing in its condition all that can be desired in a prosperous and happy land. Suppose these people, through their officers, to plead with the parent country from which it has wickedly revolted, as their apology, that it had every inner excellence of quality and character. This would not vindicate their rebellion. And so with us, it is no excuse for having left our relationship to God, that we maintain our relationships to each other'; because if we observe the last six commandments of the decalogue perfectly, yet the first four commandments are surely not given simply to be broken. If we should be able to plead at God's judgment-seat, "All the last six commandments of the decalogue we have kept perfectly," God will still ask you, "But what have you done with the first four? You have been just to your neighbor, you have been sober in yourself; but you have not been godly, that is, maintained and fulfilled your relationship to me, as you were bound by my law and your nature to do." The ungodly are moral without religion; their virtues have earthly, not heavenly roots. Wherever there is real religion in the heart, of course there is morality in the life; and if there be not, the religion supposed to be in the heart is a pretence and a delusion. But there may be morality in the life of a certain kind, without religion in the heart. All religious men are moral, but all moral men are not religious. And, therefore, the class which is specially singled out here, is just that very class which man is least likely to think in danger, and which consists of those who are every thing that is beautiful and just in the relationships of time, but who have no affinities with the everlasting; who live just as if there were no

world to come, who have no sympathy with God, no felt relation to eternity, whose character, in short, has not one element in it created by a deep and pervading sense of love and responsibility to that God who made us, and gave his Son to die for us. Thus we can understand alike the guilt and nature of the class singled out here as the first subjects of the visitation; and if they perish, what shall be the end of the rest?

There are indeed but two great comprehensive classes that constantly exist, and that will appear at the judgmentday just as they have been, the godly and the ungodly, with their shades of character. At that day all distinctions are either merged in this, or they are barely appreciated by Him who sits upon the throne of judgment. We are so prone to intrench ourselves within a party, or a sect, or a denomination, and to fancy that because we belong to that party and are surrounded by the laws and the bulwarks of that sect, that therefore we cannot be wrong; that we need frequently to be warned that the distinctions which God recognizes are these which ecclesiastics never deal with; that the distinctions that will last and live and appear sharp and clearly defined at the judgment-day, are these, - the godly and the ungodly, the saint and the sinner. The bound lines that we draw, will all be swept as wave marks on the sea sand by the flowing tide; but the great bound lines that have been since Paradise, will last till the judgment-day, and will appear again. It is not therefore an outward name, however musical, that will shelter us. It is not a mere connection with a class, a party, or a sect, that will save us. The question at the judgment-day will not be, whence we come, or what we are called, or of what family we are; but who we are, and on whom we stand, and

whether grace sovereign grace has transformed us.

Let us be therefore more intent on building up an inner

life than an outer one. Let us be more anxious to belong clearly and unmistakably to the class of saints, than to some sublunary coterie, or ecclesiastical distinction or order, upon earth. The only two successions that have never failed, that began in Paradise lost, and that will reach the very margin of Paradise regained, are sinners by nature, and saints by grace.

In this solemn prophecy, it is predicted that he shall judge them for all their ungodly words which they have ungodly spoken, and for all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed. A word once spoken goes on repeating itself for ever, a deed once done never can cease its reverberations in this dispensation; by a law of science the word that now comes from my lips will be reflected and reverberated round and round the globe, till hushed at the eve of the judgment-day. Our senses are so blunt, that we cannot perceive the more delicate vibrations; but that does not make those vibrations cease to be. This will explain a thousand statements in the word of God. At that day we shall hear with awful dismay, if among the lost, the guilty words we spoke, the unholy whispers we breathed, and the vibrations of all the deeds we have done, loud, clear, and piercing; the very atmosphere will be the register and even whispering gallery of all we said; and the very earth, the page on which will be written all we did; and we shall see ourselves at that day reflected and repeated from all things around us. If this be so, if all the ungodly deeds that ungodly men have done, and all the ungodly words that ungodly men have spoken, are to come up in retributive responses, in manifold reflections, what a solemn meeting will a judgment-day be! But their sins will not come up on a judgment-day to God's people. There is a voice that "speaketh better things than the blood of Abel," and that is

the blood of Jesus; and that sound will absorb all sounds

of sin and sorrow whatever: and there is an efficacy in that precious blood, so real, so vital, so powerful, that it will cleanse the earth as it cleanseth the heart from all the traces and the records of our transgression. Nothing but the forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Jesus will stop the resurrection of our sins, or deaden and destroy the echoes of our evil. Nothing but pardon now can extinguish the certainty of our meeting, and meeting in dismay, our sins and our transgressions again. Do we desire that that word once spoken by us, which we would give all the world to recall, may never rise from the dead, let us appeal to the voice of the blood of Jesus that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. If we wish that that deed which we have done, the lineaments of which are engraven upon memory, and the reflection of which is upon the earth on which we tread, a dark and ominous spectre, and upon the sky on which we look, a deepening cloud, though our blunt senses cannot now see it; if we wish that the original should be blotted out from memory, and that the reflection may be blotted out from the earth, behold the blood of Jesus Christ that "cleanseth from all sin." If we will not take the gospel's grand provisions, we must make up our minds to hear, reverberating in everlasting crashes of thunder, words that we would not now should be heard for worlds; and to see, revealed in the lightning in which the Judge comes, deeds that we would give worlds now to be expunged for ever. They that will not accept the gospel of Jesus, must meet him as they are with the deep graven lines of their transgressions upon them, and the dread reverberations of their own ungodly words around them, saying, “Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me;' Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." This is the only alternative. We must be Christians, or brave the issue.

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Every day as it closes brings us nearer to the time when this great prophecy of Enoch will be realized. Scenes are coming successively within the horizon that the most casual observer cannot be blind to. I expressed my conviction that in 1848 the seventh vial began to be poured out; that there was then the commencement of "the great earthquake," when "great Babylon" should come "in remembrance before God;" and when the kingdoms of the earth should be disorganized, to make way for a kingdom that cannot be moved. (Rev. xvi. 17-21.) The first shock of the earthquake occurred in 1848. We are just upon the eve, as far as one can gather from the shadows of coming events, of a more terrific one. Ask statesmen, ask those who are competent to give an opinion, what they think of the aspect of continental Europe at the present moment. There is not a kingdom over the continent that does not rock; there is not a throne in Europe that is any more secure by being defended by bayonets than it was before; there is not a population in Europe that is not at this moment seething and restless under an undefined impression of possibilities that cannot be, or under an assured conviction of the need of events and changes that they think ought to be. Very solemn is the period at which we stand. Very soon, in all likelihood, Europe will be blazing around us, its cities the volcanic mouths and craters of the pent up elements of ruin. Very soon, days of trial and of trouble such as have not been since the beginning will overtake us. When they do come, none will stand the ordeal of that day but they who are Christ's people, not by name, but in deed and in truth.

And while there are many things that will be very dark in that day, one can see, striking through the gloom, rays of bright hope and of coming glory. That very earthquake that will disorganize kingdoms, bury proud capitals,