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I. The PERSON by whom the last trial is to be conducted. It is the King: who is also spoken of as the "Son of Man." The combined justice and mercy in His appointment, who is to decide our portion for eternity. The equity of the trial depends mainly on the character and capacity of the being who presides. An angel would not guarantee a just verdict; the Omniscient will. Oh for a judge who can have a fellow feeling with us. It is a beautiful arrangement of the gospel that the offer of Judge and Redeemer should meet in the same Person.

II. THE TEST. Relieving or not the distressed. The power of being charitable not limited to the richer classes. So that we show you the lower ranks of society are no more excluded than the higher from the alleged blessedness of givers; and that those who seem to you to have nothing to bestow, may as well abide, at the last, a scrutiny into ministrations to the necessitous, as others who have large indomes at their disposal, and can take the lead in all the bustle of philanthropy. Ay, and we reckon it a beautiful truth, that, from the fields and workshops of a country may be sent to the platform of judgment the most active and self-denying of the benevolent; and that however in this world the praise of liberality is awarded only to those who can draw out their purses and scatter their gold, our labourers and artizans may be counted hereafter amongst the largest contributors to the relief of the afflicted. The donations which they have wrung from overtasked limbs, or which they may be said to have coined out of their own flesh and blood, may weigh down in the balances of the judgment the more showy gifts which the wealthy dispense from their superfluities, without trenching, it may be, on their luxuries-yea, and thus is there nothing to prove to us that there may not be poured forth from the very hovels of our land, numbers who shall as well abide the searching inquiries of the Judge, as the most munificent of those who have dwelt in its palaces, and be as justly included within the summons, "Come, ye blessed of My Father," though none are to be thus addressed but such as have fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and succoured the sick.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

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KJV: 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:

WEB: Then the King will tell those on his right hand, 'Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;