power, also ordained, we may say, by God, which consists in the authority of government and law and civil society. And it may almost be said that the government of God would be imperfect, if there were not to be at the final day of retribution some most signal correction of all the mischiefs and all the false maxims, all the lies and all the impostures, of which what is called public opinion has been guilty, and will be guilty to the end of time; and if, when the very devils of Hell itself are made to acknowledge the justice and goodness of God in His providence, those servants of Satan, who have served him so well by the manipulation of this great engine of evil called public opinion, were not to be brought to task; and if any single mind in the whole universe were to remain unconvinced of the beauty of virtue, the honour due to those things that have been most despised and run down in this world-purity, poverty, mortification, humility, meekness, and the like.

Consider, my brethren, how this public opinion has made itself a sort of infallible chair, to the decisions of which every one is to bow, from the Pontiff on the throne of St. Peter to the smallest monarch or princeling in the world! How has it set itself up above pulpits, and councils, and senates, and the wisdom of the learned, and the counsels of the wise, how bravely has it challenged any one who denied its right to be the queen of the world, and how savagely has it persecuted those who have stood up against it! Consider how it has enacted for Christian men and for Christian women a code of laws of its own, to

rebel against which was a more dangerous treason than to rebel against the safety of the State or the person of the Sovereign! Consider the number of false heroes and heroines it has imposed on the worship of its subjects; how it has falsified the law of God, and trampled on the conscience of men, calling modesty prudery, and virtue affectation, and humility meanness, and unworldliness folly; how it has made men afraid to seem afraid of breaking the law of God; how it has erected vindictiveness into a virtue, and canonized the nationalism which has brought to the loss of their faith more than one nation of Europe; how it has laughed at the saints and made a mock of the Gospel; how, if it has not restored the worship of heathen divinities, it has at least brought back Pagan morality and manners under the name of culture! Well indeed may we ask, is there to be no righting of all the hideous impostures and lies which have been palmed off on poor human society by this false authority, of which we may almost say that it has placed itself in the Temple of God, and given out that it is God? Yes, there is to be a terrible righting of all this falsehood in the Day of Judgment; and the triumph of the truth and of purity and humility and the virtues which constitute the imitation of our Lord will not be complete, until the whole world is brought, as it then will be, to one mind, and there will be no tongue to wag, and no heart even to conceive a thought, against the law of the Gospel.

Great things these, my brethren, for us to meditate on, and surely we cannot consider them, however imperfectly, without great benefit to our souls.

1

They are all so many rays of the light which will then stream upon us from the face of our Blessed Lord, piercing every cranny and nook in our hearts, and laying bare the most secret influences of our lives. "All things are naked and open in His eyes to Whom our speech is." Now, dear brethren, He is now our Friend, and He will then be our Friend, if we keep Him in our hearts, and look forward to His coming, as did those who first believed in Him. We are soon to kneel before Him in His crib at Bethlehem, and we daily worship Him upon the Cross on which He wrought our redemption. Let us join then henceforth with our other devotions to our Lord that which dwells upon the thought that He is to be our Judge and the Judge of all the world. Bethlehem leads us to Calvary. Let Calvary lead us to think of Him, as He Himself would be thought of by those for whom He was going to die-"Sitting on the right hand of Power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."

1 Hebrews iv. 13.

SERMON XIII.

PARTICULAR AND GENERAL JUDGMENT.

Mihi autem pro minimo est ut a vobis judicer, aut ab humano die: sed neque me ipsum judico. Nihil enim mihi conscius sum: sed non in hoc justificatus sum: qui autem judicat me, Dominus est.

But with me it is a very small thing to be judged by you or by man's day, but neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet am I not hereby justified, but He that judgeth me is the Lord.

(Words taken from the 3rd and 4th verses of the 4th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.)

I.

In these words we see that the Apostle makes mention of three different judgments or tribunals before which he may have to stand and give an account. The first of these three is the tribunal of men, the judgment of men like his friends at Corinth to whom he was writing, and this he calls the day of man, because, as it seems, he has in his mind the great account, which is the day of God, and with this he compares the day, so to speak, of man. The judgment of men is the first of the three tribunals. And next to that St. Paul puts the tribunal of his own conscience, as to which he says that it does not accuse him of anything, and yet that does not justify him. Last of the three he places the judgment or

the day of God-" He that judgeth me is the Lord.". Now, of these three tribunals St. Paul makes very different account. He does not absolutely despise and make nothing of any one of them, but he says that it is a very small thing for him to be judged by his Corinthian friends, or by any man, or men. Of the second tribunal, that of his own conscience, he makes much more; he places it altogether on a higher level than the judgment of men. But the

judgment for which he really cares is the third, the judgment of God, for God is the Lord, the sovereign, the master, and besides He is the all-seeing, the infallible, the most just, and the most powerful. Here, then, we have three judgments to which not only St. Paul, but every one of us must be in some sort responsible, and we have the estimate which we are to form of each settled for us by the Apostle.

And indeed, my brethren, no other estimate could be reasonably made than that which St. Paul here makes. In all judgments and tribunals there are three things which are requisite, in order to give their decisions force and weight. First of all, there must be authority to judge, then there must be accuracy in judgment, lastly there must be power to enforce the sentence that is passed. If authority is wanting, the judgment is not legitimate, it is an usurpation; if accuracy be wanting, the judgment is liable to be false; if power to enforce the sentence is wanting, the judgment is nugatory and inefficacious. Now, let us look at these three tribunals of which the Apostle speaks, and see how they stand as to the essentials for a valid judgment. Have