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It belongs to man, in which he would seem to differ essentially from the inferior animals, to make himself and his own thoughts an object of thought; not only to know what he is doing, but to be able to review his conduct and compare it with an ideal standard of expediency and right; in one word, to call himself to account. There is, therefore, an important sense in which the whole of human life is one continued Day of Judgment. Moreover, the self-judgment here referred to is understood and felt to be of an authority and sanction higher than that of man. We cannot shake off the conviction that there is a Divine, as well as human, element in conscience. It is the voice of God speaking to us through the human faculties, ordained by Him for that purpose. Who can believe that God has so made us, that we cannot help judging ourselves by the law o! right, without believing, at the same time, that He intended us to be judged, and rewarded or punished according to that law? On looking round, however, we see that this law is very far from being universally applied, or fully carried out in the present life. If there is ever to be a perfectly righteous retribution, we must look for it beyond the grave. By such natural intimations as these, almost every people, with or without the aid of revelation, have been led to entertain, with more or less distinctness and confidence, the presentiment of "a judgment to come." Even in Homer there are unmistakable traces of a popular belief in a future state of existence, where the fate of the individual is made to turn, more or less, on his previous character, and especially on his conduct towards the gods. The same is also laid down as a practical doctrine of great moment by the best among the pagan philosophers and moralists; and sometimes, as in the apologue of Erus the Pamphylian, given in Plato's Republic, in language bearing striking resemblance to that used four hundred years afterwards in the New Testament. A brave man, having fallen in battle, was permitted to return to the earth on the twelfth day, in order to warn the living by a revelation of what he had seen. He had seen the dead arraigned, and when the judges, to borrow the words of the apologue, "gave judgment, they commanded the just to go on the right hand, and upwards through the heaven, having fitted marks on the front of those that had been judged; but the unjust they commanded to the left, and downwards, and these likewise had behind them marks of all that they had done." From the pagans we pass to the Jews, among whom Christianity arose. Moses, their great Lawgiver, aimed to establish what is called a theocracy, that is government of God upon earth, in which perfect righteousness was to be fulfilled. Of course, in such a state of things, as they had a present Divine judgment, there was the less occasion to appeal to a future Divine judgment. Be this, however, as it may, there can be no doubt that in the time of our Lord the great body of the Jewish people had become believers in the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. Accordingly, the doctrine of a future state of retribution cannot be accounted a Christian doctrine in the sense of being first taught in Christianity. It has given us new evidence of the facts in the case; it has enabled us to see these facts in new lights, and under new aspects and relations: so that the old doctrine, in itself considered, has become substantially a new doctrine. This being the case, it remains for me to speak of what may properly be considered as peculiar and original in the Christian doctrine of the judgment to come. On the whole, the most natural and Christian view would seem to be, that, with every individual, as soon as this life ends the next life begins. As regards everything pertaining to the form and manner — or, so to speak, the outward appearance — of the invisible world, what most distinguishes Christianity when compared with other and false religions, is, not the fulness of the information it conveys, but its discreet and solemn reserve. One thing, however, is put beyond question — happiness to the good, misery to the bad; that is, all that can give moral effect to the revelation: not a word, not a syllable, either to stimulate or gratify an idle and impertinent curiosity. Nowhere but in Christianity will you find it distinctly laid down, as of Divine authority, that every man will be judged at last by what he has himself done, whether it be good or bad. Let us now go one step further, and ascertain, if we can, precisely what is meant when it is said that men are to be judged "according to their deeds." If, therefore, there is one thing clearer than any other in Christian ethics, it is this — that every man is to stand or fall according to what he is in himself; — not by what he does, except in so far as it expresses what he really is. Acts of worship in a hypocrite, munificent gifts merely for the name of it, solemn make-beliefs of the would-be worshipper of God and the world at the same time, go for nothing. The question continually returns, what is man in himself? There is no occasion for the nice balancing of accounts, item by item, referred to above; neither is there any occasion for a miraculous memory to enable us to call to mind every thought we have indulged, every word we have uttered, and every action we have performed. It will be enough, if we know in what moral and spiritual state all these have left us; and to know this it will be enough, if we are made conscious of what we are. It may be said, that the guilty soul will still be in the hands of a compassionate God; and this is true. Beware, however, of making compassion in God what it often is in man — a mere tenderness, I had almost said a mere weakness. Nor is this all. We must not expect in the next world what is incompatible with its nature and purpose. We are placed here to make a beginning. Are you sure it will be so in the world to come? Why first a world of probation and then a world of retribution, if after all both are to be equally and alike probationary? Let us not run risks, where the error, if it be one, is irretrievable, and the stake infinite.

(James Walker.)

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KJV: And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

WEB: I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.