CHRIST THE FINAL JUDGE. THOUGH the stations occupied by Socinians and Trinitarians, for the most part, are wide as the poles, yet, on one particular ground, they both amicably meet. They both believe that our Saviour, Jesus Christ, will preside as Sovereign Judge, in the Last Great Day. But how a Socinian can admit that one whom he regards as a mere man," should become the Judge of the whole earth, is inexplicable! The following are the declarations of Christ and his Apostles; which are presented in a connected form, to show the importance, and strength of the doctrine. : "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matt. xxv. 31. &c. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son." John v. 22. 24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." John v. 25. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John v. 28. "The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." Matt. xvi. 27. "When the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory." Matt. xix. 28. "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Mark viii. 38. "Whosever shall confess me before men, Man also confess before the angels of God." him shall the Son of Luke xii. 8. "And to stand before the Son of Man." Luke xxi. 36. "For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive of the things done in the body." 2 Cor. v. 10. "For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.” Rom. xiv. 10. "For then how shall God judge the world." Rom. iii. 6. 66 Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart: and then shall every man have praise of God." 1 Cor. iv. 5. "And to wait for his Son from heaven." 1 Thess. i. 10. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God." 1 Thess. iv. 16. "Be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. v. 23. "At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints.” 1 Thess. iii. 13. "Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord." James v. 7. "When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory, that fadeth not away." 1 Pet. v. 4. "When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thess. i. 7. "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all.” Jude 14. "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened." Rev. xx. 12. "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away; and there was found no place for them." Rev. xx. 11. "We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile bodies." Phil. iii. 20. After these numerous, and express declarations, no even nominal Christian can question, who it is before whom mankind will finally appear. But does the Socinian duly consider the super-human qualities that must pertain to the Judge of "Quick and Dead? Mr. Belsham seems appalled at the thought, while admitting the fact, and speaks of the "difficulty" attending the subject; and, on his principles, such indeed it is. The "Son of Joseph and Mary," come on the clouds of heaven, with a resplendent panoply of Celestial Beings; with the voice of the Archangel, and the Trump of God! A man, judge his fellow men, and assign to them their eternal condition! (One, deemed by the whole body of Socinians as "peccable!") This "peccable Child of Humanity" become the grand arbiter of Eternal Life, and Death! The Heir of Frailty, (as he is deemed to be, by Socinians) sit on the Circle of the Heavens, and Earth and Sea, at his mandate, deliver up their Dead, and before him come to Judgment! He, " a mere man," that once expired on Calvary, summon to his Tribunal Bar, all the generations of earth; in that moment, hanging on his words, and dependent on his will, for their eternal condition! But all this is the mere appendage; the superficial aspect of an unutterable profound! He who wears the Diadem on this last Great Day, must be able to penetrate all hearts; behold all circumstances of aggravation, or palliation, and that, not like earthly tribunals, where guilt or innocence is often determined by the preponderance of conflicting evidence; but he must infallibly know, and his immaculate decisions of justice must carry conviction to every heart. The Judge, at this season of joy to some, and tribulation to others, must not presume, but clearly discern the force of every temptation; the subdivisions of guilt; the genuineness of contrition; the inveteracy of the obdurate; and, (piercing the veil of the hypocrite,) descry the hollow semblances that imposed so often on human admiration. Can aught but Deity concentrate in itself, such illimitable knowledge, and such transcendent powers? The imagination that merely glances at the thought, that "a Child of Adam" can be thus elevated above his natural compeers, feels an instinctive conflict, that rises in rebellion against the promulgation of such a fable! and yet the Socinian, whose spirit is so tenderly alive to the credulous; who is so often blind where others see, and who deems no crime in the intellectual branch of morals, equal to a deduction from insufficient premises; this tenacious worshipper of reason; this fastidious disputant, and pertinacious analyzer of sublimated truth, can spontaneously concede to " a mere man," The Throne of Judgment, to occupy which, for one moment, would exceed the competency of all the Hierarchies of Heaven! Socinians, in conceding to Christ, the office which the Scriptures so clearly assign to him, that of Judge alone in the Great Day of account, unintentionally subvert their whole system! Light and darkness are not more irreconcilable, than the indispensable qualities of the Final Judge, with not only the most exalted condition of humanity, but of any Created Nature. 66 There are seasons when ungracious truths must be uttered; a speaking out, a firmness manifested, commensurate with the extreme demand: and when, as at this time, strenuous efforts are made to undermine all that is venerable and sacred in Religion, the advocates of Truth are imperatively required to declare, The false and fawning adulation which Socinians bestow on the moral qualities of the Saviour, disgusts from its hollowness, while it nauseates by its incongruity. How can they extol the excellencies of him, whose words they deny, and whose pretensions they invalidate? They first declare Jesus Christ to be a mere man," and then, inconsistently, exalt their "Son of Joseph and Mary," into an Almighty Judge, on whose fiat, all human destinies are to depend! Such contrarieties, to reflecting minds, furnish their own antidote. However Socinians may writhe under the inflictions of spiritual excommunication by the whole Christian world, it is the penalty due to the monstrous heresies they have advocated; and in consequence of which, according to all dispassionate biblical estimation, they are not, they cannot be identified with the Friends of the Redeemer, nor the Household of Faith! Socinians are reduced to the alternative of admitting, or denying, the truth of our Saviour's words, when he affirmed his pre-existence, and his participation in the Divine Nature and Honours. If they admit, they are not Socinians; if they deny, they are Infidels, with this distinction, that their candour is less, and their creed far more inconsistent than the class to which they virtually belong. Happily for the cause of Truth, the admission by Socinians, that Christ will be our Final Judge, is the mill-stone which will progressively drown their unhallowed system in the depths of the While they sanction this doctrine as an integral part of their faith, they upturn their whole surreptitious edifice. Here sea. Trinitarians plant their foot as on an immovable rock. The point conceded carries with it a stupendous train of consequences. Socinians, in assigning the Throne of Judgment to Christ, subscribe (if he be "a mere man") to a physical impossibility. It might with more justice be affirmed, that a brute could direct an army, or calculate an eclipse, than, that a mere descendant of Adam could judge the secrets of all hearts, and become the grand adjudicator of the final condition of man. Had the fact been less distinctly declared in Scripture, and with fewer iterations, Socinians would doubtless have taxed their invention, and shown by their own "incontestable evidence," that what we interpreted literally, was all "figure and oriental allegory;" but the solemn fact having been exhibited in every possible form, it admitted neither of subterfuge nor evasion; and therefore they were reluctantly compelled to ascribe to one whom they regarded as a mere human being," the occupancy of the Judgment Seat, and, in the fullest sense, to transfer to a human tribunal those essential qualities which can pertain alone to Deity! It must be repeated, the advocates of the "simple manhood of Christ" ascribe endowments to him, as the Universal Judge, absolutely incompatible with humanity; so that in affirming Christ to have been 66 the mere Son of Joseph and Mary," they endue a frail human being with all the incommunicable attributes of the Supreme! 66 It might have been thought that this dilemma (and "difficulty" indeed) would have alarmed Socinians, and have prompted them to reconsider the foundation of sand on which they build for eternity. That they have been startled at the absurdities necessarily arising out of their system, is evident by their own admissions, and the efforts they have made to explain away the extreme features of the case. In the casual absence of prejudice, when a vigorous understanding was allowed its fair exercise, Mr. Belsham thus reasons on the subject. "From these declarations, it is concluded that Jesus is "appointed to appear in person to raise the dead, to Judge the 66 66 world, and to award to every individual of the human race, "his final sentence of reward or punishment. This is an office "of such transcendent dignity and importance, and requires powers so far superior to any thing we can conceive to belong to a mere human being, however meritorious and exalted, that to many it appears utterly incredible, that such an office should "be assigned to one who was himself at one time a peccable "and fallible man, and as such, liable to appear at the tribunal 66 |