Let us, however, beloved, steadily consider the assertion of the text, that we may be the more firmly disposed, and the more resolutely determined, to apply the inference. Let us consider what is now before the Lord, as it regards our own hearts, that we may anticipate what will be before him in that hour when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and every one shall be judged according to his work. In order to do this effectually, we will examine, first, the extent and exercise of God's divine omniscience in the abstract; "Hell and destruction are before the Lord:" next, the extent and exercise of it in that relation which personally concerns ourselves; " How much more then the hearts of the children of men:" and finally we will press home the subject in a way of moral conviction-in a way of solemn admonition-in a way of consolation and encouragement. And may the Spirit of God now speak by us, and now speak to you may it be His word which is uttered by my lips, and engraven on your hearts, through Jesus Christ.

"Hell and destruction are before the Lord." Here there can be no doubt that the immediate reference of the writer was to God the Father, who had revealed himself to Israel by the name here employed, of Jehovah, the Lord. Hence, as from many other passages in the Old Testament, we derive, on comparing them with the Scriptures of the New, an incidental evidence to the divine nature of our blessed Lord; an evidence of which it is proper to make specific mention, because it is incidental. All will admit that, if the Son of God can be demonstrated, in common with the Father, to exercise the essential attribute of omniscience-that of seeing that which is invisible-to exercise it in the abstract both with respect to hell and destruction, and in the especial influence that rises in the heart of every man; it will be scarcely possible, and certainly most irrational, to impeach or invalidate the conclusion, that he is partaker of the divine nature: for the divine nature is none other than a combination of divine attributes, all of such a description, so connected and combined, that each is necessary, not only to the exercise, but to the existence of the others; and consequently, he who possesses any, must, of necessity, be possessed of all. Now the appropriate prerogative of omniscience, as in the first clause of our text, "Hell and destruction are before the Lord," was evidently assumed and exercised by Jesus after his resurrection: "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and of death :" while he proved, during his continuance in the body, both that he knew the thoughts and regarded the hearts. The explanation and reconciliation of which is simply (and the observation of the fact is indispensably important to those who have an interest in the encouragement to be deduced therefrom) that the attributes of God towards us are all practically invested in, and manifested by Christ; that to use the Apostle's own words, he is to us, "the power of God and the wisdom of God;" that all things are committed to him in heaven and earth; that he is "head over all things to his Church," and able, in consequence, to do "exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think," for all such as come to God by him. We know therefore (and who shall estimate, in a course controlled indeed by Omnipotence, yet chequered by sin and encompassed by infirmity-who shall estimate the value of such knowledge?) that "he is not one who is not touched with the

feeling of our infirmities," but one "who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" one that having himself suffered, "he is able to succour them that are tempted." It is such an one of whom we say, that by him the Father administereth the government of the universe-by him he will doom to destruction hereafter. "Hell and destruction are before the Lord."

The idea conveyed by the words, "hell and destruction," in their union with each other in the Old Testament, as well as by the equivalent expression, "death and hell," in the New, seems to include, first, the grave (here termed "hell,") which is the receptacle of the dissolved and dismantled body; and, next, that unknown and undefined region, which is the dwelling of disembodied souls; especially of that part of it here denominated "destruction," where impenitent and unpardoned souls are "reserved unto chains and darkness for ever." And it is invested to our apprehension with the greater awfulness, because, though we must all inhabit it, there is yet a veil of mystery drawn across it, which human eye would in vain attempt to penetrate.

A kindred phrase is employed by the writer of the book of Job, in reference to the all-discerning eye of God: "Hell is naked before thee, and destruction hath no covering." When earth has returned to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, every particle of the body that was once instinct with the breath of life, and of which the flexible and elastic members acted out the volitions of the intelligent mind within, under whatever form it may appear to be exhibited, and with whatever foreign substances incorporated, every particle has its distinct memorial in the all-recording mind, and will in the appointed time be recalled by the all-constraining voice. A lively image of this is presented by the prophet Ezekiel. He looked abroad upon a spacious valley, spread with bones that were very dry; but when he prophesied, according to the Word of God, not only bone came to bone, but "the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above." We need not, therefore, to ask the question of the fool, "How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come?" either as disputing the certainty of the fact, or as doubting the practicability of the process. For the fact, it is evident that "He who raised up Christ from the dead," is able also "to quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" for the process, we may surely leave what he has not thought proper to reveal, with implicit confidence to Him who, possessing the creative power, can hardly be denied that of recalling and remodelling, after the counsel of his own will, that which once existed by the command of his own word.

"Hell is naked before him :" the grave has for him no abode. As without Him there falls not a hair from the head of the living, so without him there cannot be absorbed or annihilated a particle of the dead; but he is for ever working by a process inscrutable to us, to bring out of corruption incorruption, power out of weakness, and out of the natural a spiritual body. There is a natural body it is that which we "bury away," like Abraham, "out of our sight," though it was once the tenement and the tabernacle of the soul we loved best on earth. There is a spiritual body also: it is like that which Jesus appeared in after his own resurrection, none doubting or questioning that he who thus appeared was Jesus; and in which we shall stand before his throne, when we shall be made like unto his glorious body.

Meantime, as hell so destruction is before the Lord. As hell is naked, so

destruction is naked before the Lord. His eye shall look on the disembodied spirit, whether it abide in the immediate contemplation of Jesus, and in a state of joyful, because certain expectation, until the perfect consummation and bliss both of body and soul which awaits it on its re-union with the flesh, or whether (and to that the text seems to point) it be excluded from the expectation of the just, and be shut up in outer darkness to the judgment of the great day; the dreadfulness of which is expressed to the human imagination under “the worm that dieth not," and "the fire that is not quenched," and the utterance of unavailing regrets which are delineated to mortal apprehension, under the fearful imagery of "weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth."

Contemplated in any aspect, the personal application of our text is momentous beyond all estimate. If, of the millions upon millions who have crowded in succession the stage of existence, and vanished from it like motes in the sunbeam, or bubbles that mingle in the waves-if of those there is not one that is not present to the divine eye through all ages, and existent to all ages in the purposes of God; if the spirit, banished for ever from among men, is rejoicing in the porch of Paradise, or trembling on the threshold of that dark abode which is destined for its eternal prison; if God's mighty power is throughout all time steadily, though secretly, continuing a process by which the body that was once "the instrument of unrighteousness unto sin" shall again become "the instrument of righteousness unto God," how much more are the hearts of the children of men before him! Yes, beloved brethren, our own heart-the heart of every one before us, whose eternal destiny is now, to his own apprehension in suspense, knows this, at least, that he must either be an heir of Christian hope, a partaker of Christ's kingdom, or (which may God's mercy forbid) an outcast from his presence, a prisoner in that dungeon which hope never can enter. How, then, should we be stirred up by the conviction that God is looking on us, though we may look not on ourselves! Is not the fact that "all things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do," enough to suggest the question, and to compel the answer-"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself in judgment before the high God?" Is it not enough to direct us, in such an examination, to principles strictly scriptural, when we read that the ways of a man are indeed “right in his own sight," but "the Lord trieth the heart?" And must we not acquiesce in the propriety, and in the sole sufficiency of the prophet's reference, which applies as much to those who judge of themselves, as to those who judge of others: "To the law and to the testimony: if we judge not according to this word, it is because there is no light in us ?"

Little, however, will be done, unless by God's help we can bring the acknowledgment closely home to the hearts and the consciences of men. For the general confession is that which all will utter-the general supplication is that which all will prefer; and it is easy (alas, for the deceitful heart of man!) it is easy and common to say to the Almighty, in that which is the semblance-we might almost term it, the mockery-of prayer, "Search thou my heart," and to say it without a consciousness of hypocrisy; while yet we wince like the galled jade if man attempt to search it, and turn with aversion from him who would supply a standard by which we may search it for ourselves.

Braving, however, all risks, and fearless of being reckoned an enemy, if hostility must come by the declaration of the truth, we who are ministers of Christ, and watch for souls as those who must give an account-we say to the man who is bent on the acquirement of wealth, and who is caught in the snare of that covetousness which is idolatry, Remember that thine heart is open before God, and that the eyes of God are on the truth. He sees and notes which you love best, your desire or himself; and according to your preference, so is your god; where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And you may test yourselves by this: if, as you rise early, the mind, instead of first springing after God, enters upon conscious existence with forming schemes of personal advantage and aggrandizement; if, as you late take rest, the eyes habitually close, whilst the mind, whose last waking thought ought to be of Christ, is ruminating on the profits, and the schemes, and the speculations of the day; if, having food and raiment, and enjoined therewith to be content, your homes become the abodes of carefulness, either by reason of anxiety for the future, or dissatisfaction of the past-either because you have less than others, or desire to have more than they; even if the Sabbath is encumbered by thoughts and plans of worldly policy, and the genuine, though unuttered language of the heart (and the heart's language is the same in every age) "When will the Sabbath be gone that we may sell again?"-if commercial speculation and adventure, watching for a tide in the affairs of men, and attempting to turn that which should refresh others into your own channel, for the increased facility of amassing wealth; if this be the continual mainspring of action-if this be the power that daily sets in motion the machinery of the heart, then we hesitate not to say, that in every fibre of that heart, naked to the eye of Omniscience, are developed the spots and the symptoms of a plague which, if unheeded and neglected, must be inevitably fatal to the soul. For not only is "the love of money the root of evil," but God says all evil, in the conception as well as in the execution of which it is the root. "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts. which drown men in destruction and perdition." When, therefore, you are eager in the pursuit of wealth-when you are bold and enterprising in adventure-when you are flushed with success-when, on account of that very success, you are flattered, and applauded, and approved by men-stop short, and remember this one thing -“Man judgeth by outward appearance, but the Lord trieth the heart." But those who are ascending the ladder that leads to opulence, those who are actively engaged in commercial or professional pursuits, will obviously form but a portion, and a small portion, of a mixed congregation: and therefore we must say also to the lover of pleasure, whatever form it may assume, whether it meet us under the various aspects of animal indulgence, or in the more specious and seductive garb of a thirst after literary distinction, or a passionate devotion to the fine arts and we must say to the lover of distinction, whether aspiring to write his history in the page of time, or actuated only by that low ambition which heeds not how contracted the circle is of which it is the centre: and we must say to the lover of self-indulgence-whether in the pursuits of science, or that unmanly indolence which is the delight of the vacant mind-and whether it be in the halls of mansions, or the saloons of palaces, or amidst those miniatures of Pandemonium, those outlets of the infernal pit, re-echoing the blasphe

mies of hell, which demonstrate the sensual and demoralizing condition of a land that is called Christian, draining, like so many vampires, the life's-blood of our country, and which, unless God put forth his arm, will become the hot-bed of every passion, and the nursery of every crime: we say to the lovers of pleasure, whether high or low, rich or poor, assume whatever form, conceal itself under whatever disguise it may-Thy heart is before God. He knoweth what his own place therein is, as well as thou knowest what it ought to be; and if thou credit his own testimony, that "whosoever liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth," how can he who dieth in what men call pleasure expect to live after he is dead-to live in that place for which alone life is worth possessing, the life which is "hid with Christ in God?" for be assured of this, (and it applies under one form or another to us all, even if we are not lovers of pleasure, or seekers after wealth,) it is comparatively of little moment where we place God, if we do not place him first. He will never give his glory to another: he will never condescend to hold the second place in the heart. This man knows, and the knowledge of it is one cause which drives him from the hearing of the word; and, if he enters into the sanctuary, it even there blinds his eyes that he may not see, and steels and stupifies his heart that he cannot feel or understand.

Whoever, then, strives to misunderstand the word, because comprehension is conviction, and whoever struggles to forget the word, because remembrance is reproof, he may be assured that he has an idol in his heart which tempts him to err, and constrains him to forget his God; and, though there may be comparative blamelessness in the life, iniquity is regarded in the heart. Remember, then, that the great point, whether your present state is a state of salvation or not, depends upon the answer to a single question: answer it, therefore, brethren, as promptly as you can, and as faithfully as you dare: Am I, or am I not, a lover of pleasure; and not of pleasure only, but of any earthly object, more than a lover of God? If I seen not so in my actions, am I in my heart? for the outward act is that of which man takes cognizance; but the heart is before God, and it will be before God when it has ceased to beat in this tabernacle of clay. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to remind the hypocrite-the deliberate and conscious hypocrite-the man with whom an exact and ostentatious performance of all religious duties is, in truth, the cloak of licentiousness; or, who dares to make the profession of godliness subservient to views of selfish principle and secular interest-it is scarcely necessary to remind such a man, that his heart also is before God; that, to the divine view, and in the divine purpose, his covering of dust is already stripped off, and his refuge of lies already pierced through and through. It is needless to remind him of this, for he knows it well; and it is amongst the most hideous and appalling sins of hypocrisy—that sin of sins-that it offers a pointed insult to the Majesty of heaven. It is the sale of the heavenly birth-right, by one who is conscious of its value, for a mess of pottage. It is the deliberate barter of hope and immortality for the breath that is in man, and the short-lived bubble of reputation and credit. The hypocrite may be successful in over-reaching others; but let him know this-the person whom he most flagrantly and fatally deceives, is himself.

We will not, however, dwell on a class of transgressors, in this place, we hope, without a single representative, and which even the meek and lowly Jesus