for this despised friendship. act as your accuser. Nay, He will be invested with full power from His Father to be your Judge and to treat you as He wishes. How does a man feel when a suit in which he is interested is left to the decision of a judge whom he has deeply offended, and who, as he knows, is his worst enemy? Ah, he would think, now there is no hope for me! Alas! it is all up with me! although in worldly judgments there is some way of escaping out of a difficulty like that by refusing to have such a one as judge on account of his partiality and hostility, and appealing to another whose decision will be unbiassed. Try that, O sinner! when you come before the divine tribunal, and there see Jesus Christ, whom you have contemned and made your enemy; tell Him that you will not have Him as your Judge; that you appeal to another because you know that He is not favorably inclined to you. But your appeals and protestations will be of little service to you. That same Jesus Christ and no other will be your Judge, and will decide your fate for all eternity. Alas! what will be your feelings then?
What terror shall then overwhelm the sinner! Shown by an example from Holy Writ. Imagine, my dear brethren, the consternation of the brethren of Joseph when they found that he had become viceroy of Egypt, and heard him say those few words: “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold.”[1] Consider those words. He does not say: I am Joseph your lord and judge, and you are my prisoners: your lives are in my hands. He did not upbraid them with their former cruelty towards him, nor say to them: do you remember how you acted to me when I implored your mercy on bended knees, with streaming eyes, and you put me into a pit, and then sold me like a dumb beast into Egypt? I am now your lord and you cannot escape me, and I am able to take what revenge I please for the injury you have done me. No; that was not necessary to touch their hearts. The few, sweet words, “I am Joseph your brother,” were enough to fill them with dismay, although he spoke them with the greatest tenderness and with tears of affection: “He lifted up his voice with weeping: which the Egyptians and all the house of Pharao heard.”[2] “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Be not afraid, and let it not seem to you a hard case that you sold me into these countries: for God sent me before you into Egypt for your preservation.” And yet they were thunderstruck with fear: “His
