Mankind are here on trial. Different talents are committed to them.
God acts as a sovereign in apportioning betrustments, and will observe
exact impartiality in adjusting retributions.
The idea of talents implies ability to improve them. Gospel
applications speak such to be our state--they are adopted to no other
state.
The fatalist, and those who conceive every human volition and
action to be the effect of divine agency, have no rational motive, to
do, or suffer for religion. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we
die."
However we may amuse ourselves with idle speculations, this life is
approbation season.--Our use or abuse of the talents we possess will
determine us to happiness, or misery, honor or infamy.
"All have sinned, and are guilty before God--In his sight shall no man
living be justified"--our sole desert is punishment. But God hath had
mercy on us--provided a Savior, and offers us salvation. The offer is
universal--"Whosoever will let him come."
That _there is no respect of persons with God_, is alike the dictate
of reason and revelation, We have only to act with integrity before
God, relying, on his grace in Christ, and his grace will be sufficient
for us.
The man who had the one talent, neglected it, under pretence that he
served a hard master, who required things unreasonable and impossible
--he was condemned; but _only_ for neglecting the talent which he
possessed.
It is required of a man according to that which he hath--this he can
render--the neglect will be fatal. We must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ, that we may receive the deeds done in the
body, according to that which we have done, whether good or bad. For
God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing,
whether it be good or evil.
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_.
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