children of disobedience and leading them captive at his will. He is a lying spirit in the mouth of false prophets, seducers and heretics. It is he that torments and possesses men. He inspires them with evil designs, as he did David when he drew him into sin by tempting him to number Israel; Judas to betray his Lord; and Ananias and Sapphira to conceal the price of their field. Places pre-eminent for wickedness are styled "Satan's seat." He roves full of rage like a roaring lion, to tempt, to betray, and to involve us in guilt and ruin.

When we consider the plain testimony of scripture on the existence and agency of evil spirits on the human mind, have we not abundant evidence of their existence and agency; and that those who deny this fact and endeavor to explain the scriptures so as to justify such a denial, are perverting the scriptures? If the power of Satan be an Eastern metaphor, so may the power of God be in delivering men from it. There is no doctrine in the Bible but that might be thus explained entirely away. Let us believe what God has said, and conform our faith to the decision of the sacred scriptures.

VII. Another evasion which I shall notice, IS, THAT THE JUDGMENT DAY IS PASSED AWAY ALREADY, OR THAT EVERY MAN IS

JUDGED AND REWARDED IN THE PRESENT LIFE. By this expedient all those passages are explained away which speak of a judgment 'to come, of every man standing before the judgment-seat of Christ; and of Christ as coming in the clouds of heaven with power and with great glory to judge the world. Since a few texts are found, in which the coming of Christ is spoken of with reference to some special manifestation of his power and glory in the present world, the position is assumed as demonstrably true, that wherever his coming is spoken of in the scriptures, it must have the same limitation, and relate only to the scenes of this life. It is asserted that all the judgment there is for the transgressor is in the present life, because if it be admitted that there is a judgment in a future state it will follow of course that there will be also punishment in a future state. Of this, the objectors of future punishment are aware; hence their attempts to disprove the doctrine of the general judg

ment at the end of the world. But were the Bible silent upon this point, it might be conclusively proved from facts and considerations independent of direct scripture testimony, that there is to be a judg ment after death.

That there will be a future judgment, may be inferred from the partial displays of divine justice in this world. If there be a righte ous God, he will fully reward the righteous and punish the wicked, But this is not done in the present dispensation of things. Whether rewards and punishments are invariably awarded to men in the present life according to their moral actions, is a point that has been long settled. The experience of all ages has shown that pleasure and pain, prosperity and adversity, are not distributed by providence exactly according to the virtues and vices of mankind, but scattered with a promiscuous hand. Though various instances occur in which those who have distinguished themselves by their crimes are distinguished by the judgments of God, while those who have been eminent for piety and virtue were signally delivered by the interposition of divine providence, yet the objects of God's hatred and love are not uniformly distinguished by the present distribution of things. The wicked are often in prosperity all their days, while the righteous are in adversity. As it respects public, calamities, the distress is general and indiscriminate. If drought, famine, pestilence, floods or fires are commissioned to spread wide disasters, they have no warrant except in a few miraculous instances to exempt the righteous. Hence the tie that binds human society must be severed before there can be a perfect retribution; for the state of individuals is inseparably connected with that of society, and good and bad men must share alike in public blessings and calamities.

We also infer a future judgment from the fact that although this is not a state of perfect retribution, yet God in his providence does here begin to reward virtue and punish vice. Had no distinction whatever taken place in the present life between the righteous and the wicked, there might have been some ground to conclude that the ancient complaint was just," that all things come alike to all men; there is one event to the righteous and the wicked."

N

But to suppose that God regards with equal eye the evil and the good, is in effect to annihilate his existence, as it contradicts every notion which holy beings have entertained of him. It would represent him as having less regard for virtue than many of his creatures on earth; for but few of them are so depraved as not to wish the virtuous rewarded and the vicious punished. Now God is a being of order, and he has displayed it in his moral government. He has shown himself favorable to virtue and unfavorable to vice. He does begin to reward and punish in the present life. Thus we see the throne of the Almighty already set for judgment; and by his beginning to reward and punish here, we infer what he will do hereafter, when the characters of moral agents will be fully adjusted.

Conscience also intimates to man when he sins that he deserves to be punished. Now the reproaches of conscience are altogether inexplicable, if there be no retribution beyond the grave. We are therefore led to the conclusion that those terrors which assail the wicked may be considered the beginnings of that misery and anguish which will be consummated in the world to come, in the cases of those who add final impenitence to all their other crimes.

When we see or hear of great crimes committed by others, such as murders, perjuries, robbery, treachery, oppression in all its forms, and tyranny in all its degrees from that practiced towards the African slave, up to that exercised over the lives and liberties of millions of cringing vassals, through the forbearance of God, or the imperfection of human laws; we feel something within us demanding that such should receive condign punishment. From these considerations it seems reasonable to expect that there will be a judgment after death.

But it is not on an argument of this kind that I principally rely for proof of a future judgment. We are not left to the mere dictates of reason on this subject. God, in his word, has revealed in the clearest manner, that there will be a day of reckoning at the end of the word. "I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked." "For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

(Ecc. liii: 17.-xii: 14.) "God hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained." (Acts xvii: 30, 31.) "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ."—(Rom. xiv: 10.) "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive of the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."-(2 Cor. v: 10.) Here it may be observed that the retrospective phrase, the things done in his body, determine the time of the judgment to a period beyond this life. "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”—(Matt. xi: 36.) "And as Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled."-(Acts xxiv: 25.) "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all his 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, but the goats on the left. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."—(Matt. xxv: 31-46.) These passages so clearly refer to the general judgment at a future indefinite time, that nothing need be said to establish this application of them. Another class of texts clearly limits the judgment to a period subsequent to death and the resurrection. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but AFTER this the judgment." (Heb. ix: 27.) "I charge, therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom." (2 Tim. iv: 1.) "Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”—(1 Pet. iv: 5.) By the quick we are to understand those who shall be alive on the earth when Christ comes to judgment; and by the dead those who are so in a literal sense. The dead will be raised, and those who are alive upon the earth at that time, will be changed, and both together will be judged. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and

"For I am

at hand; I

the perdition of the ungodly men."-(2 Pet. iii: 7.) ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing." (2 Tim. iv: 6-8.) "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire." (Rev. xx: 12-15.) Death and hell, taken liter

Prior to the day of Judg

ally, are things which belong to time. ment, the ungodly were confined under their power as in a prison, but having received their doom, they shall not be remanded back thither, but go into everlasting punishment. St. Peter speaks of the angels who sinned and were cast down to Tartarus, and delivered in chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment.—(2 Pet.

4.) St. Jude, speaking of the same characters, is more explicit. "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day."-(Jude 6.) Though the subjects of the judgment in these two last passages, are fallen angels, and not sinners of mankind; yet the argument from their case, in support of the future judgment, is equally strong as though spoken of men for it is not the subjects but the certainty of future judgment that is the object of inquiry.

There is another class of texts which speaks of the judgment and its attending circumstances. "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