Judge appears! He cometh,' cries a mighty seraph, the herald of his approach, he cometh to judge the world in righteousness, and minister true judgment unto the people!' He cometh, not as formerly, in the habit of a servant, but clad with uncreated glory, and magnificently attended with the armies of heaven. Angels and archangels stand before him, and ten thousand times ten thousand of those celestial spirits minister unto him. Behold him, ye faithful followers of the Lamb, and wonder and love! This is he who bore all your iniquities on the ignominious cross: this is he who fulfilled all righteousness for the justification of your persons. Behold him, ye despisers of his grace, and wonder and perish! This is he whose merciful overtures you have contemned, and on whose precious blood you have trampled. The great white throne, beyond description august and formidable, is erected: the King of heaven, the Lord of glory, takes his seat on the dreadful tribunal: mercy on his right hand displays the olive-branch of peace, and holds forth the crown of righteousness; justice on his left poises the impartial scale, and unsheaths the sword of vengeance; while wisdom and holiness, brighter than ten thousand suns, beam in his divine aspect. What are all the preceding events to this new scene of dignity and awe? The peals of thunder sounding in the archangel's trumpet; the blaze of a burning world, and the strong convulsions of expiring nature; the unnumbered myriads of human creatures, starting into instantaneous existence, and thronging the astonished skies; all these seem familiar incidents compared with the appearance of the incarnate Jehovah. Amazement, more than amazement, is all around. Terror and glory unite in their extremes. From the sight of his majestic eye, from the insupportable splendours of his face, the earth itself and the very heavens flee away.' How then? Oh! how shall the ungodly stand? stand in his angry presence, and draw near to this consuming fire? Yet draw near they must, and take their trial-their decisive trial at his righteous bar. Every action comes Rev. xx. 11. + Ibid. under examination: for each idle word they must give account: not so much as a secret thought escapes this exact scrutiny. How shall the criminals, the impeni. tent criminals, either conceal their guilt or elude the sentence? They have to do with a sagacity too keen to be deceived, with a power too strong to be resisted, and (O, terrible, terrible consideration!) with a severity of most just displeasure that will never relent, never be entreated more. What ghastly despair lowers on their pale looks! What racking agonies rend their distracted hearts! The bloody axe and the torturing wheel are ease, are down, compared with their prodigious And (O holy God! wonderful in thy doings! fearful in thy judgments!) even this prodigious woe is the gentlest of visitations, compared with that indignation and wrath which are hanging over their guilty heads which are even now falling on all the sons of rebellion which will plunge them deep in aggravated and endless destruction: And is there a last day? and must there come Surely then, to use the words of a pious prelate, it should be the main care of our lives and deaths what shall give us peace and acceptation before the dreadful tribunal of God. What but righteousness? What righteousness, or whose? Ours or Christ's? Ours, in the inherent graces wrought in us, in the holy works wrought by us? Or Christ's, in his most perfect obedience and meritorious satisfaction, wrought for us, and applied to us? The popish faction is for the former; we protestants are for the latter. God is as direct on our side as his word can make him, every where blazoning the defects of our own righteousness, every where extolling the perfect obedience of our Redeemer's.' Behold!' says the everlasting King, I lay in Zion, for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.'t As this text contains so noble a display of our Saviour's consummate ability for his great work, as it is admirably calculated to preserve the mind from distressing fears, and to settle it in a steady tran* Bishop Hall. Isa. xxviii. 16... quillity, you will give me leave to touch it cursorily with my pen, just as I should descant upon it in conversation, was I now sitting in one of your agreeable ar bours, and enjoying your more agreeable company. : How beautiful the gradation! how lively the description! and how very important the practical improvement! or, I might say, the inscription which is engraven on this wonderful stone-Behold!' intended to rouse and fix our most attentive regard. The God of heaven speaks: he speaks, and every syllable is balm, every sentence is rich with consolation. If ever therefore we have ears to hear, let it be to this Speaker, and on this occasion. A stone. Every thing else is sliding sand, is yielding air, is a breaking bubble; wealth will prove a vain shadow, honour an empty breath, pleasure a delusory dream, our own righteousness a spider's web. If on these we rely, disappointment must ensue, and shame be inevitable. Nothing but Christ, nothing but Christ, can stably support our spiritual interests, and'realize our expectations of true happiness. And, blessed be the divine goodness! he is, for this purpose, not a stone only, but A tried stone.' Tried, in the days of his humanity, by all the vehemence of temptations, and all the weight of afflictions; yet, like gold from the furnace, rendered more shining and illustrious by the fiery scrutiny. Tried, under the capacity of a Saviour, by millions and millions of depraved, wretched, ruined creatures, who have always found him perfectly able, and as perfectly willing, to expiate the most enormous guilt, to deliver from the most inveterate corruptions, and save, to the very uttermost, all that come unto God through him. A corner-stone.' Which not only sustains, but unites the edifice: incorporating both Jews and Gentiles, believers of various languages and manifold denominations, here, in one harmonious bond of brotherly love, hereafter in one common participation of eternal joy. A precious stone.' More precious than rubies; the pearl of great price; and the desire of all nations. Precious, with regard to the divine dignity of his person, and the unequalled excellency of his mediatorial offices. In these, and in all respects, greater than Jonah, wiser than Solomon, fairer than the children of men, chiefest among ten thousand, and, to the awakened sinner, or enlightened believer, altogether lovely." A sure foundation.'t Such as no pressure can shake: equal, more than equal, to every weight, even to sin, the heaviest load in the world: the Rock of Ages, such as never has failed, never will fail, those humble penitents who cast their burden upon the Lord Redeemer; who rollt all their guilt, and fix their whole hopes on this immoveable basis; or, as the words may be rendered, a foundation! a foundation! There is a fine spirit of vehemency in the sentence thus understood. It speaks the language of exultation, and expresses an important discovery that which mankind infinitely want, that which multitudes seek and find not; it is here! it is here! This, this is the foundation for their pardon, their peace, their eternal felicity. 'Whosoever believeth,' though pressed with adversities, or surrounded by dangers, shall not make Cant. v. 16. + Fundamentum fundatissimum. Rolk' This is the exact sense of the sacred phrase, 7177, Psal. xxii. 8; xxxvii. 5; Prov. xvi. 3. I am not ignorant that some people have presumed to censure, and many have been shy of using, this bold and vigorous metaphor; which, nevertheless, appears to me, of all others, the most just, the most significant, and therefore the most truly beautiful. A burden that is manageable and comparatively light we cast, we throw; but that which is extremely ponderous and quite unwieldy, we move only by rolling: accordingly stones of an enor mous size are called by the oriental writers, stones of rolling,' Ezra v. 8. Consider the expression in this view, and nothing can represent, with greater or with equal energy, that prodigious load, which, heavier than the sand of the sea, oppresses the guilty conscience: by subsstituting any other word, we enfeeble and dilute the sense, we lose the capital and striking idea. Vain man would be wise. Let him not then, for the credit of his ingenuity, adventure to correct the language of omniscience: this, if any thing in nature, is Periculosae plenum opus alese." This will be sure to discover, not his fine taste, but his groveling apprehension and his rampant pride: to improve, with the painter's brush, the glowing colours of the rainbow; to heighten, by fuller's soap, the lustre of the new fallen snows, would be a more modest attempt, and a much easier task, than to make an index expurgatorius, or a table of errata, when the Spirit of inspiration dictates. מוסד מוסד $ haste; but free from tumultuous and perplexing ;'* thoughts, preserved from rash and precipitate steps, he shall possess his soul in patience: knowing the suf ficiency of those merits, and the fidelity of that grace, on which he has reposed his confidence, shall quietly and without perturbation wait for an expected end; and not only amidst the perilous or disastrous changes of life, but even in the day' of everlasting judgment, such persons shall stand with boldness.' They shall look up to the grand Arbitrator, look round on all the solemnity of his appearance, look forward to the unalterable sentence, and neither feel anxiety, nor fear damnation. Such, in that day of terrors, shall be seen To face the thunders with a godlike mien." The planets drop; their thoughts are fix'd above: This portion of Scripture, which I hope will both delight and edify my friend, recals our attention to the subject of my present letter-to those propitiatory sufferings, and that justifying righteousness, which, imputed to sinners, are the ground of their comfort, and the bulwark of their security. And what say the writers of the New Testament upon this point? they, whose understandings were opened by the Wonderful Counsellor,' to discern the meaning of the ancient oracles; who must therefore be the most competent judges of their true import, and our surest guides in settling their Shall not make haste,' w x5. This metaphorical expression, though it might be very intelligible to a Hebrew, is to an English reader like some fine picture placed in a disadvantageous light. We may possibly illustrate the prophet's meaning, and exemplify his assertion, if we compare the conduct of Moses with that of the Israelites, on viewing the fatal catastrophe of Dathan and Abiram. When the earth trembled under their feet, when the ground opened its horrid jaws, when the presumptuous sinners went down alive into the pit, when the tremendous chasm closed upon the screaming wretches, the children of Israel, it is written, fled at the cry of them; fled in wild and hasty confusion, for they said, Lest the earth swallow up us also. But Moses, who denounced the dreadful doom, Moses who was sure of the divine protection, Moses made no such precipitate or disorderly haste: he stood calm and composed; saw the whole alarming transaction without any uneasy emotions of fear, or any unnecessary attempts to escape. So that his behaviour seems to be a clear and apposite comment on Isaiah's phrase.. See Numb. xvi. |