that we shall pass into another, and an eternal world ➡enter on an eternal, unchangeable state of happiness or misery-surely these are serious, solemn thoughts, sufficient one should think to awaken the most insensible, and to soften the most obdurate. What is it, brethren, which gives value to time, and to life itself, but that it is our season, our only season of preparation for eternity-but for this, it were of little consequence how we passed through it.

These epistles of St. Peter were addressed to the various Christians who in the first days of the Gospel were scattered abroad by the fury of persecution. They were assailed in every way, not only by the arm of secular power, but by the false reasoning of the philosopher, and the profane ridicule of the scorner. They required therefore peculiar support, lest they should grow faint and wearied in their minds, and be turned away from the hope that was in them. St. Peter writes to stir up their minds by way of remembrance; to confirm them in their faith, love, and obedience to their great Master and Saviour, as well, perhaps, as to correct some errors into which they had fallen. Many of the first Christians appear to have entertained an opinion that the end of the world, and the day of final judgment, were then actually near. Still succeeding years brought with them no such change: the vain,

A A

*

ever come.

licentious, and unbelieving world thence took occasion to raise a question whether such a time would They ridiculed the credulous and weak-minded Christians, not only for their mistake as to the time of the consummation of all things, but also for expecting any such event at all: These were the scoffers who came in the last days; (that is, in the days of the Gospel dispensation,) "walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." My brethren, such at all times is the spirit and temper of infidelity, no matter what modification of outward form or character it may wear. We have infidels to encounter, perhaps in some respects in a new and formidable shape, in this our day.

In the present passage the Apostle shows the profaneness, as well as fallacy, of this reasoning. He reminds those whom he addressed of God's judgments upon the old world in the midst of their thoughtlessness and security—that so would the second coming of the Son of God, the last great judgment, be. He further reminds them of the certainty of this great event, which had been fixed and determined in the counsels of Him who sees

1 2 Peter iii. 4.

the whole as it were at one glance; with whom "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The reason of delay on God's part is the most merciful and gracious that can be imagined, would His sinful and thoughtless creatures but consider and apply it. It is that they may turn and repent, and be saved. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance:"1 and then follow the words of the text, from which we learn these great and important truths-that there will be a solemn and final day of judgment, previous to which this present state of things, the earth on which we live, and perhaps the material world connected with it, will undergo some surprising and awful change, which we are to understand, not in a figurative, but in a literal sense, expressed as it is by the Apostle,-that the time of this great event is totally hidden and concealed from us, and consequently our wisdom, as we love our own souls, is, to live in a constant state of preparation; for that whether such an event should happen during our abode on earth, or after our removal from it, its practical consequences to us are precisely the same. How awful is the description of the day

1 2 Peter iii. 9.

of the Lord, that "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up." This earth, when the trial of man, the great purpose for which it was created, has been accomplished, shall be destroyed by the same Almighty power that in the beginning formed it out of nothing. Of this none can doubt who believe the power or even the existence of God. This world has already undergone many changes from the hands of God. Upon the fall of our first parents its character was changed. Unto Adam it was said, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." When "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth," it was visited by a deluge, the manifest proofs of which memorable event remain to this day. God, in his mercy, has declared that no similar judgment shall ever befall the world: but he has also declared, in language equally plain and express, that at some time known to himself alone, the event here predicted in the text shall be fulfilled. To attempt to dwell on such a scene is not my present purpose. Awful and tremendous indeed, whenever it occurs, must it be, beyond description. The bodies of all those that are in their graves shall come forth, at

1 Gen. iii. 17.

the sound of the last and solemn trump,-they that are then alive on the earth shall be changed,the judgment shall take place; Christ-he who came to visit us in great humility-shall appear the second time with power and inconceivable majesty, the books shall be opened, the dead, small and great, shall stand before God; all shall be judged out of the things written in the books, according to what they have done in the body. The wicked-they who in that awful day shall be condemned-"shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”1 For them there shall be "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," whatever that may precisely mean; I should suppose, the final happiness of heaven. This is "the end of the world" the close of our earthly labours, when "the great Householder" he who has given us our various talents-shall come and reckon with us all; this is the great harvest, when the tares shall be separated from the wheat, the wheat gathered into the garner, the chaff burnt up with unquenchable fire.

And now, brethren, need I say much in order to apply the words of the Apostle? "Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation