SERMON CCI.

THE BOOKS OPENED'.

REV. XX. 12.

"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 those things which were written in the books, according to their works."

THIS is that awful scene to which all things here are silently going on. Days, and months, and years, and generations, and ages, pass away, and still it comes nearer and nearer : every night that we lie down in our beds, and every morning that we rise up, is a kind of step in that unceasing journey, whether we mark it or no it is so much irrecoverably gone of the time and power we had to prepare us for that fearful meeting with our JUDGE. St. John saw it but in vision, but that vision was an earnest and sure token of what both he and we shall one day see with our eyes. We shall see it as surely and more clearly than we now see any thing here: the bright and glorious Throne, and CHRIST sitting upon it; the Son of God, who is also Son of Man, with that glorious Body which rose from the dead, and which His Disciples then saw and touched; the Dead, of all times and nations, great and small, good and evil, believers and unbelievers, standing before HIM; they who hid, as it were, their faces from

1 Preached shortly before a Confirmation.

HIM, when seen on earth, or from the Church with which HE promises to be,--they shall see HIM face to face, and shall look on HIM whom they have pierced. We shall see HIм, and we shall feel that He is looking on us; and it will make all the difference to us for ever, whether His eyes shall then be turned towards us in wrath or in mercy.

All that God does with us here, and all that He calls on us to do for ourselves,-our Baptism, our Confirmation, our Prayers and Sacraments, our Churches and Holydays, our Bishops and Priests, and all our means of grace, the Word of God also in His Holy Scriptures,-all were given us for this one purpose, to make us ready for that last great unknown hour. If we would follow the guidance of the Bible, especially of our LORD's own words in the New Testament, we shall never allow the thought of that day to be long out of our minds. We shall think of it in the morning when we arise, and in the evening when we lie down, and in the day when we are at our work, and in the night as we lie awake on our beds. We shall be glad or sorry, pleased or troubled, as our conscience tells us that we are, or are not, going on in a way to prepare us for that day.

And to help us in this continual recollection of the end, we shall do well to represent to ourselves those most awful pictures of the Day of Judgment, of which there are so many in the Holy Scriptures. We know what sort of thing a judgment is here on earth: let us imagine something of the same kind, but infinitely awful and overpowering, at the last day: the Judgmentseat, not on earth, but in the clouds of Heaven; and sitting upon it no earthly judge, but our LORD JESUS CHRIST in His glorious Body, wherewith He rose from the dead; around HIM no mortal guards and officers, but the Holy Angels by thousands and tens of thousands; before HIм not one or two criminals charged with one or two offences, more or less grave, but the Dead, small and great, and all those also, who shall be found alive on the earth in that generation; not that kind of stir around HIM, which takes place in a city or town on the arrival of an earthly judge, but the very Heaven that we see, and the earth that we live on, flying away before His face, so that no place shall be found for them; the world and all things therein burned up. We shall be there, my Christian brethren, every one of us,

as surely as now we are here: our eyes and ears will be witnesses of those terrible sights and sounds, beyond what now our hearts can imagine.

And now take notice of what follows next. As in earthly trials one most necessary part is the opening and reading of the written testimonies, so in this last and most dreadful trial both St. John and Daniel saw "the Books opened," that is, the records which ALMIGHTY GOD keeps, out of which we are to be judged. For as HE, our MAKER and PRESERVER, we are sure, knows all that we say, do, or think; it is all present always to HIM, He cannot, as we do, forget it after a time;-so the Scriptures plainly teach, that what God alone now knows concerning us, He will then declare to all the world. HE "will make manifest the counsels of men's hearts." "He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness;" His fire will "try our work, of what sort it is."

More particularly we are instructed, that in this Book of GOD are "written, day by day, all our members;" all the limbs of our body, and powers of our soul, and, no doubt, all the other good gifts and talents which He has intrusted us with. He keeps account of all, and will call us to account for all.

Again, in this Book are entered both the insults of His open enemies, and the hypocritical unfaithful doings of His own people. As to His enemies, "Their wine," He says, "is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps is not this laid up in store with ME, and sealed up among My treasures? To ME belongeth vengeance and recompense:" that is, whoever speaks against GOD and His Church, openly taking the side of the world and the devil, he will find hereafter that all his words were treasured up. And so, too, with the hypocritical and untrue among God's own people. Of such GoD says by the Prophet Isaiah, "It is written before ME, I will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the LORD." And Jeremiah, speaking to all those who plunge themselves wilfully in deadly sin after they have been once received among God's own people, says; "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before ME, saith the LORD GOD." And in another place, "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a

diamond." As if, though ALMIGHTY GOD keeps indeed a record for all sins, HE set down in darker letters than usual the backslidings of His own people.

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Just as in other places we are given to understand, that in His mercy He keeps a special account of those who are faithful and true to HIM in bad times. When the proud are called happy, and they that work wickedness are set up, then they that fear the LORD speak often one to another, and the LORD hearkens and hears them, and a book of remembrance is written before HIM for them that fear the LORD and think upon His Name." HE "tells their flittings," their anxieties and trembling care: "HE puts their tears into His bottle:" "these things," especially, 66 are noted in His Book."

Once more: among the matters which are more particularly recorded in that fearful Book of Account, we cannot doubt that the vows are set down, which we make from time to time, either in general to serve the LORD, or to discharge our duty in any particular calling or station. No question, for example, but our baptismal vows are there, as well as the manner in which we have kept them. Not one of all the millions of souls, who have been made Members of CHRIST, since the HOLY GHOST first set up the Kingdom of Heaven in the world, is left out in that unerring Register: both the debt is there, and also how we have paid it.

No doubt also that the same leaves contain our repetition and renewal of those our first vows, whether in Confirmation or in the Holy Communion. When, as we expect in the course of a few days, those young persons who have been invited, and are prepared, come before the Bishop to receive CHRIST's blessing through him, and are asked, "Do you here in GoD's and His Church's Presence, renew solemnly your baptismal promise and vow?" and when they shall answer, as the Church bids them, I do;" we are to make no question but that this their answer is heard in Heaven, is set down there, is registered either against or for them, will be remembered there, will appear and be recited on their trial in the great day.

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So too, as often as we come to the Holy Communion, we renew our vows, we pledge ourselves to lead a new life and every one of those promises, too, make sure of it, is written and engraven on the leaves of that awful Book. So are the vows

people make in holy matrimony, engaging themselves to love and cherish one another, and the woman besides to obey her husband, and both promising entire faithfulness, and keeping themselves only to one another, so long as they both shall live. So are the Ordination vows of the Ministers of GOD; and the vows which kings make when they are crowned: and, in a word, all solemn engagements which we enter into, calling God's Name to witness. We shall hear of them all at the last day : they will be read out of the Book, either to our everlasting peace, or to our shame and everlasting contempt.

It concerns us, one and all, seriously to think of this, both those who are to be confirmed, that they may say their appointed words seriously in the fear of GOD, and those who have been confirmed, that they may not consider what they then said as having at all passed away, but may very often bethink themselves, that their promised vow stands as fresh and distinct in GOD's Book, as if it were made but a moment ago. They may have forgotten it, but He has not. Let them be for ever remembering it, if it is only to put themselves to shame with the thought, how very unworthily and thoughtlessly they took, how very imperfectly they have hitherto kept, those vows. Far better, surely, to go mourning all our days with such bitter recollection of our faults, than go on quietly and easily through life, thinking of other things, and find our broken and forgotten vows set down against us in the Court of Heaven, in that hour when there will be no more forgetting, no more hiding our face away, either from ourselves or from the world, which has thought perhaps so well of us, when we so little deserved it.

But besides these books, which contain all the doings of every one of us, there is another, a more consoling part of the Apostle's vision: "Another Book was opened, which is the Book of Life." We might have supposed, that in such an account no one could at all come off clear, no one in such a trial stand upright: but by the grace and merit of our MOST HOLY SAVIOUR we see that it is not so. There is still a Book of Life, even though in those other books all secret doings and thoughts are contained; there will be still some, in all a great multitude, found not unworthy of everlasting life.

Of this Book, the lists which were kept of the children of