wherein he was born, read the marvellous thoughts, and will, and word of the Almighty. Let us also, in the next place, prayerfully study this book. never forget, that whilst it is the plainest book, whilst it is the most easy to be understood, whilst it is so plain that in all essential things the wayfaring man cannot err therein; yet to be to us saving, to be to us a savour of life, it needs the Holy Spirit that inspired the Scriptures in the outer page to impart the Scriptures to our inner heart, that we may believe and live. It needed not only God's Holy Spirit to inspire Paul to write it, but it needs as fully the same Holy Spirit to inspire our hearts savingly to believe it. It is as great a sin to think you can understand the Scriptures savingly without the Spirit teaching you, as it is to think that you can get to heaven without Christ's mediation. A true Christian seeks to get to heaven by Christ alone; a true believer seeks to understand the Bible by the Holy Spirit alone. And, thank God, “If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give his Holy Spirit unto them that ask him.” CHAPTER XVII. 31. PLACE OF PAUL'S ADDRESS-TIMES OF IGNORANCE-THE JUDGMENTDAY-JESUS THE JUDGE-NATURE OF JUDGMENT-MANIFESTATION AND FIXTURE OF CHARACTER-RUINED ANGELS-THE JUDGMENTDAY SUDDEN-TWO CLASSES ONLY THERE. ONE sentiment in Paul's address is worthy of special illustration" Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Acts xvii. 31. I gave in my exposition a brief analysis of that most impressive, appropriate, and instructive address preached by Paul from Mars' hill, when the philosophers of the Academus and the Stoa constituted his learned, and, I might add, his captious auditory. He showed them, and told them in the clearest manner, amid all the proofs of the high degree of excellence they had attained in the arts, in painting, in poetry, in statuary,—and from the brow of that hill he could see, if he chose to look round, some of the noblest monuments of heathen architecture, that these arts, and sciences, and literature, and poetry, and painting, and music, grew up in that city around an altar on which remained the humiliating inscription "to an unknown God." These might adorn or they might conceal the altar; they could not supply its want, or erase the inscription that truth and faithfulness were compelled to record upon it. There was something, too, very august in the fact-humbling to heathen philosophy, but glorifying to the God of the Bible-that a barbarian, as they would call him, from the banks of the Jordan, and taught by "one," as they said, "Jesus of Nazareth," should come to the banks of the Ilissus, and into the very heart of Athens; and should dare to utter these words to its most accomplished philosophers: "The God whom ye ignorantly worship, him I-a Jew-declare unto you." And yet, when these words are read this day in the midst of our own experience, we feel that Paul expressed himself, if anything, too softly, not too severely, when he gave utterance to these words. With all their light, they were in darkness; with all their knowledge, they were ignorant; professing themselves to be wise, they were in the highest sense fools; and only an ambassador from Christ, carrying in his heart the love and light of the Cross, could convey, or was able to convey, to these men those great and blessed truths which are contained in the sermon that he preached when Mars' hill was his pulpit, and the masters of philosophy his auditory. He told them that this God, whom he preached, was not worshipped with men's hands, but with men's hearts. They thought that beautiful architecture, magnificent statues, gorgeous temples, edifices of the choicest Parian marble, were the expressions of true worship. They were not so; God is not worshipped with the hand, but with the heart, and with the life; and one living heart beating in true love to God was, in the estimate of God, and angels, and a discerning universe, a nobler spectacle than the Parthenon itself, or the choicest monuments of heathen architectural skill 66 And then, when he had explained to them all these things, and told them that their "times of ignorance," -no word could have been said more gently, and yet no word can have cut to the heart-" God winked at." To the men who thought Paul ignorant, and themselves “ wise men ;” φιλόσοφοι, “ the lovers of φιλοσοφία, or of wisdom,”—to them he said, "The times of this ignorance, in which you philosophers have lived, God has winked at ;" not winked at it in the sense that he would not look at it because he knew it was wrong; but has suffered, not visited, with the penal retribution that they deserved. But now, he says, the light shines upon your threshold, the truth now is resounding in your temples. Your responsibility now is altogether altered; and, therefore, "God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent;" everywhere they are welcome, everywhere they are commanded to do so. And he asks you to notice what I tell you, that he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that very man whose cross is foolishness to you, a stumbling-block to the Jews; whom he hath ordained; and he has given a prophecy, earnest, and pledge of this, in the fact, that he hath raised him up from the dead, and constituted him the Son of Man, the Judge of all flesh. Now these words, with which the apostle concluded his address to the philosophers of Athens, are a most clear and simple announcement of the certainty and solemnity of a judgment-day. I need not tell those who have read their Bibles, that the same great fact is frequently alluded to in Scripture, but under varied imagery, and each time with imagery calculated to give a very impressive idea of the sublimity and solemnity of that dread ordeal. For instance, we are told in the Gospel of St. Matthew, xxiv. 31, “He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Then he tells us again, in 2 Thess. i. 7, " To you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day." In very sublime imagery the same event is depicted in the prophet Daniel, where he says, in the 7th chapter at the 9th verse, "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued, and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened." You have the same event described in, if possible, yet grander imagery in the Book of Revelations, xx. 11: "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And 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 |