ur 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.

Under this head, we were also to show _where the ungodly and the
sinner appeared_. We have already had occasion to state, that Peter in
our text refers to the destruction coming upon the Jews. The time was
come when that judgment of persecution, which began at the christians,
was to be returned upon the heads of their persecutors in seven fold
vengeance and suffering. Their city and nation were to be destroyed,
and their magnificent temple, where their devotions were offered, was
to be laid even with the ground. Not one stone was to be left upon
another, but the whole become one general heap of ruins. Then
according to the prediction of Jesus, was there to "be great
tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this
time, no, nor ever shall be." Then was "wrath to come upon them to the
uttermost." Then was he to "take vengeance on them that know not God,
and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." Then were "the
children of the kingdom to be cast out into outer darkness where there
was wailing and gnashing of teeth." Then, as a nation, were "they to
go away into everlasting punishment;" for "these were the days of
vengeance when all things, that were written, might be fulfilled," and
"all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel
to the blood of Zacharias, should come upon that generation."

Titus led the Roman army against them,