at the end of time is certain from the manner in which he concludes, which is as follows:  “And take heed lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares * * * Watch ye, therefore, and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of man.”  Here we perceive that not the least allusion is made to a judgment at the end of time; because there would be no propriety in warning his disciples not to be drunk or overcharged with the cares of life at a judgment day thousands of years after their death.  The day when the christians were “to stand before the Son of man” was at the destruction of the Jewish polity, and it was to take place in the life time of some of the disciples.  Christ says, “there be some standing here that shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”  The day of Christ was therefore at hand, and the apostles were warned to keep it in view, and watch the signs that were to precede it.  Peter was faithful to these warnings, and when he saw the signs, presaging its near approach, he exclaimed—­“The time is come,” &c.  This was the day of tribulation, when the christians were scarcely saved from the dreadful fate that overtook their own countrymen, who remained blind till the things that made for their peace as a nation were hidden from their eyes.

[Concluded in our next.]

SERMON XX

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?  And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1 Peter iv:17, 18.

In our last we have attended to the first two divisions of our subject—­viz:  what we were to understand by judgment beginning at the house of God, and who were the righteous, and in what sense they were scarcely saved.  We now invite the attention of the reader to the remaining division of the subject. Third—­who were the ungodly, and where they appeared.  By the ungodly and the sinner, we are to understand the unbelieving Jews, the murderers of Christ and the persecutors of his followers.  It has exclusive reference to them and not to the ungodly who lived subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem, much less does it refer to all the wicked that have ever existed, or shall hereafter exist, as common opinion asserts.  This needs no further explanation.