sinners, you who hear, and I who speak, concerned in it all? As certainly as we are now met together in this place. No man or woman who ever has been, or ever will be borù, can claim exemption. It is decreed for men once to die, and after death, judgment."* Convinced as we are of this momentous truth, permit me still to lay before you a few of these proofs of a future judgment, which, while they guard you against infidelity and scepticism, the pest of our days and the infamy of our age, must awaken in your minds a more lively sense of those duties, whose consideration, the cares of the world, the interest of your passions, and the allurements of your pleasures, so powerfully tend to efface. I shall use two arguments in proof of a future judgment; the first regards the order of society, the second is taken from conscience.

That there is a God, the universal cause, author, and father of all things, the greatest sceptics must allow. That this God- must be entirely just in regard to his creatures, they must also acknowledge; any other notion would be entirely injurious to his divine perfections, would tend to destroy the very idea of an all just God. These principles established, what can be more contrary to the nature and idea of the all-just Governor of the universe, than to leave the almost infinite series of human actions as it were to hap-hazard, to suffer men to tear one another in pieces, by murders, rapine, injustice, and oppression of every kind, without applying some suitable remedies to such disorder, triucing some equality for the evils suffered without redress? How can we imagine such an equality and just compensation can be

* Heb. x. 27.

made, but by suitable rewards and punishments for good and evil? He beholds on the one hand the piety and sanctity of his children, with the miseries and afflictions they undergo; he sees on the other, the horrid oppressions, crying injustices, execrable crimes, and barbarity of others. He sees his friends persecuted for his sake, because they will not give his glory to another, or forsake the paths of virtue. Heinous crimes evidently deserve punishment, and good deeds reward, according to the most just and natural notions of things. Neither can it be consistent with infinite justice and goodness, to put guilt and innocence on the same footing. Consequently, the good who suffer in this life, and the wicked who prosper, must be placed in different conditions in the next, where the hardships and miseries of this life suffered for virtue's sake, shall be amply recompensed by an all just God, and equal Father of all.

In reality, we must wonder what sort of notions persons who deny this must have of God, if they sincerely believe him to exist; when we consider the afflicted state of this mortal life, wherein millions of innocent persons, from their first to their last gasp, are overwhelmed with unspeakable miseries; when we consider the world would be nothing else but a miserable transient series of short-lived mortals, perpetually rising and sinking into nothing, or at best into senseless matter, as it must be, if there be no future state; whose life is but a vapour, yet oppressed with innumerable calamities, without hopes or redress for their injuries, without any recompense for their labours. In this supposition, in this hard and unequal state of mortals, what idea, I say, can the adversaries of religion have of God, if he has not reserved another state to

shew forth the treasures of his goodness to those who love him and keep his commandments; distinguishing, by an impartial judgment, his faithful subjects from the rebellious violators of his sacred laws? Hast thou, O God, made all of the same nature, stamped alike with thy sacred image, and impressed with the same desire of happiness, and shall so many of thy creatures languish in hopeless misery? Surely no.-The moralist is wrong, who, telling us that partial evil is universal good, leaves misery without hope in death. The Christian moralist better concludes, if there were but one instance of unfortunate virtue, and prosperous wickedness, it would be to me an argument for a future state, because God cannot be unjust or unreasonable in any one instance.

My second argument is taken from conscience. Let not your faith be shaken by the example of those pretended superior geniuses, who boast of having freed themselves from this restraint, and wish to demonstrate, that conscience is but a chimera or fancy. We cannot reasonably free ourselves from conscience, until we have demonstrated the falsehood of the principles I am going to lay down, and prove that the consequences drawn from them are chimerical.

The judgment that constitutes the nature of conscience, is founded on three principles. First, I am in a state of dependence. Second, there is a supreme law, or, what is the same, there is something right, and something wrong. Third, 1 am either guilty or innocent. Every man who maintains the probability of these principles, and the vanity of the consequences drawn from them, must be either a fool, or a madman, whose attachment to vice has blinded his eyes, and turned his brain. Take the first principle, I am in a state of dependence. I am subject to a supreme

Being, to whom I owe my existence, and who holds my destiny in his mighty hand. Do I exceed the truth, when I say, a man who ventures to affirm, that this principle is neither demonstrable nor probable, is a fool or a madman?

Again, a man who pretends that arguments drawn from the order of the seasons, from the arrangement of the various parts of the universe, from the harmony of the members of our bodies, and all the other works of nature; a man who a fhrms that all these prove nothing, do not afford the least probability of the perfections of a Supreme Being, who for his part is sure that all this originated in chance, and consequently that there is no supreme law, what is he but a fool or a madman? Try the next principle. There is a supreme law, or something just or unjust. A man who pretends that this proposition is evidently false, a man who forms such an idea of all the arguments drawn from the nature of intelligent beings, from the perfections of a first cause, from the laws that he has given; a man who pretends that all these arguments do not afford the least degree of probability, that a wise man ought to infer nothing from them to direct his. life; and that for his part it is clear to a demonstration to him, that what is called just and unjust, right and wrong, is indifferent in itself, and indifferent to the just and omnipotent first cause; that it is perfectly indifferent in itself, whether he love a benefactor or betray him; whether he be faithful to a friend, or perfidious; whether he be a tender parent, or cruel. to his children; whether he nourish and provide for, or smother them in the cradle; and that all these things relate only to the present world, what is he but a fool or a madman?

What has been said will suffice for proof of

this truth. "After death comes judgment."* Then there must be a future judgment. O, alarming catastrophe, what tongue can describe thy terrors? And what shall be the destiny of this audience? What sentence shall the Judge of the world pronounce on us, in that formidable day when he shall judge the world in righteousness! Will it be a sentence of mercy! will he pronounce your absolution! Shall we, my brethren, be more insensible to our eternal doom than the very Heathens, so many of whom have been converted and become martyrs to Christianity at the bare recital of this dreadful event! Shall our tremendous Judge say to us, Come ye blessed, or Depart ye accursed? These words you will as surely hear, as he who declared you shall hear them, is faithful and true. But on what score will he pronounce our pardon or reprobation? On that of charity: "I was hungry, you gave me to eat; thirsty, you gave me to drink. Čome ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was a stranger and you took me not in, naked and you clothed me not.”+

O obduracy, thy doom is fixed as it is dreadful. The voice of almighty indignation has irrevocably decreed, that whosoever turns his face from his poor brother, the face of the Lord shall be turned away from him. Who is there here so abandoned by grace? Who is there so hardened in wickedness? Who is here so inebriated by worldly prosperity, as not to tremble at a denunciation of so terrible an import? O you miser, who wallow in silver and gold, who idolize your