An unseen hand is constantly writing down our volitions and actions, to be reserved to judgment.  Ere long the books will be opened, which will open every heart, and life.  Not a circumstance which goes to constitute a state of trial, will be omitted—­all will be brought into the reckoning, and serve to determine our eternal state.

That state will be determined by the use which we shall have made of life, and the advantages which we enjoyed in it.  The divine impartiality will then appear—­“The ungodly will be convinced of their ungodly deeds—­and of their hard speeches, which they have spoken against God.”  None will complain of injustice—­none of the condemned pretend that they receive aught, which others circumstanced as they were, and acting as they acted, would not have received from the hand that made them.  “Every mouth will be stopped.”

This, fellow mortals is our seed time for eternity.  “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also of the Lord, whether he be bond or free—­every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labor.”

Not only the state into which we are to enter at death, but the rank we are to hold in it depend on present improvement.  All the sanctified will be saved; all who die unrenewed will be damned.  But there will be different grades, both in the upper and lower worlds.  Of the saints, some “will be scarcely saved.”  To others “will be ministered an abundant entrance into the kingdom of Christ.”  There are also greatest and least in the kingdom of heaven.  And among those exiled the world of light, differences will be made, suited to the different degrees of criminality.  Capernaum will receive a more intolerable doom than Sodom.*

* Matthew xi. 23, 24.

All these discriminations will be built on the present life, and rise out of it.  This will be so abundantly manifested, “when God shall judge the world in righteousness,” that an assembled universe will confess, That there is no respect of persons with God.

* * * * * *

SERMON VII.

Moses’ Prayer to be blotted out of God’s Book.

Exodus xxxii. 31, 32.

“And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, ’Oh! this people have made them gods of gold.  Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.’”

This is one of the most difficult passages in the holy scriptures.  Many haven attempted to explain it, and in our apprehension, failed in the attempt.  Some will entertain like opinion of the following.  Perhaps justly.  We are no less fallible than others.

In matters which have engaged the attention of the learned, and in which they have differed, assurance is not perhaps to be expected.  But as we are forbidden to call any man master, we have ventured to judge for ourselves respecting the meaning of the text, and now lay before the reader the result of our attention to it; not wishing to obtrude our opinion upon him; but leaving him to form his own as he may find occasion.