SERM. 7. This appointment of Jefus for our Judge is farther XXXIII. very conducible to our edification, in way of excitement to the practice of our duty, and encouragement thereto; in way of confolation and fatisfaction to our foul. It confidered is apt to raise in us a high reverence and dread of our Saviour; and confequently to dispose us to the obfervance of his laws, and imitation of his example. It is matter of fpecial comfort and encouragement to confider, that hence affuredly we fhall find a fair and favourable trial; fince it is no enemy, not one difaffected, yea, not one indifferently affected toward us, who fhall judge us, but our best friend; from whom we may expect not only justice and equity, but all the favour and kindnefs our caufe will bear. It also duly pondered is most proper to work in us an earnest care, and fear of finning, and thereby of becoming obnoxious to condemnation: for what an aggravation will it yield to our whether foolish perverfeness or flothful negligence; how extreme difingenuity, how wretched ingratitude will it argue in us, to be caft and condemned by fuch a judge; a judge fo fair and equal, fo mild and gentle, fo benign and favourable to us; fo willing to acquit us, fo defirous to fave us! With what face, think we, having transgreffed his moft good and righteous laws, having rejected all his gracious tenders of mercy and favour, having defeated all his moft ferious purposes, and fruftrated his moft painful endeavours for our welfare; having violated our manifold obligations and engagements to him; having abufed his fo unexpreffible great love and good-will toward us; having hence deplorably forfeited all his favour, and incurred his moft grievous difpleasure; with what face, I fay, having done all this, fhall we appear in his prefence how then fhall we bear the frowns of his tender love changed into fierce disdain, of highest patience turned into extreme fury, of so terrible a majefty provoked by fo heinous affronts? with what heart fhall we hear that once most sweet and charming voice, which in fo pleasant and affectionate a ftrain did found forth words of peace and 2 Cor. v. 20. comfort in our ears; that so kindly invited us to reconci liation, fo meekly fued us to a compliance with him, fo SERM. liberally offered to us the best things in the world upon fo XXXIII. gentle terms, now only uttering toward us bitter complaints and fore rebukes; thundering forth words of indignation and terror, denouncing most horrible menaces and curfes upon us. Heb.xii. 22. Thus, and to fuch purposes, is Jefus our Lord appointed to be our Judge: I fhall only farther touch the manner of his exercifing and executing this office, or the way of his addrefs and proceeding thereto; the which in holy Scrip→ ture (for the begetting in us a regard, veneration, and awe fuitable thereto) is described to be with greatest glory, ftate, and folemnity. Our Lord came once in a meek humility to fhew us our duty, but he fhall come again with a dreadful majesty to exact an account thereof; taking his progress from the highest heavens in most royal μvá. magnificent equipage, attended upon with a numerous, or with a numberlefs, and most pompous train of angels, (with all the holy angels, it is expressly faid,) accompanied Matt. xxv. with triumphal fhouts and acclamations; a trumpet of Jude 14. God, (that is, a wonderfully and unconceivably fonorous 1 Thef. iv. trumpet, blown, as it were, by the mouth of God,) and the 2 Thef. i. 7. voice of an archangel refounding before him an univerfal fummons, with a noise fo loud and piercing, as fhall immediately, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, shake 1 Cor. xv. all the earth, and roufe all the dead out of their mortal 52. flumber; the irresistible breath of that all-powerful voice wafting them, together with all furviving people, through 1 Thes. iv. the clouds into the prefence of their Judge, confpicuously Matt. xxv. feated in most glorious state upon his royal tribunal. 16. 17. 31. This fame Jefus, faid the two angels to the Apostles, Aûs i. 11. expreffing this matter in the most simple and plain manner, fhall come in like manner as ye have feen him go into heaven: a cloud took him up from their eyes then, and the clouds, as they imply, should restore him to their fight; for, Behold, faith St. John, he cometh with the clouds; and Rev. i. 7. every eye shall fee him: and, They fhall fee the Son of man 30. xvi. 64. coming upon the clouds of heaven in power and great glory; Matt. xxv. and, When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all 2 Thef. i. Matt. xxiv. 31. xvi. 27. 16. 1 Cor. xv. 52. SERM. the holy angels with him, then fhall he fit upon the throne XXXIII. of his glory, faith our Lord himself fomewhat more explicitly but St. Paul with most punctuality describeth 1 Theff. iv. the manner of his appearance; The Lord, faith he, shall defcend from heaven with a fhout, (èv nedɛúoμati, with an exciting or commanding fummons,) with the voice of an archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Chrift fhall rife firft: then we, which are alive and remain, Shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. In fuch manner, to the purpose of exciting due respect and dread within us, is our Lord represented at the end of the world to come down from heaven, for the exercifing this judgment. III. I proceed to the laft particular obferved in the text, which is the objects, or the extent of the judgment ordained: whom is our Lord ordained to judge? how many shall they be? It is refolved; all, without exception; expressed here by the words quick and dead: and other2 Tim. iv. 1. where by St. Paul; I charge thee, faith he to Timothy, Rom. xiv.9. before God and the Lord Jefus Chrift, who shall judge the quick and dead at his appearing and his kingdom: and by 1 Pet. iv. 5. St. Peter likewife; Who, faith he, concerning profane men, shall render an account to him that is ready to judge both the quick and dead: which places evidently do confirm the truth of the propofition, that all men are obnoxious and shall be fubjected to this judgment; but yet fo that the words themfelves, quick and dead, may seem to need fome explication; for it being a common law, to which all men by nature, fuch as it now ftands, after the Heb. ix.27. curse, are fubject to undergo death; for thence it is, as ἀπόκειται. the Apostle faith, appointed for men once to die, and after death judgment; and, What man is he, faith the Pfalmift, that shall not fee death? and that being so, why should not the dead comprehend all that are to be judged? acRev. xx. 12. cordingly as we fee it expreffed in the Revelation; I faw Ifa. lxxxix. 48. the dead, great and Small, ftanding before God-and the dead were judged for the things written in the books, according to their works. The dead were judged; no men tion is made of the living: wherefore, to evade this ob- SERM. jection, some have interpreted the dead and living, not for XXXIII. a diftinction of perfons, but of parts in men; of the living fouls and dead bodies of men: others have taken the words as fignifying metaphorically the living, that is, righteous men, say they, or perfons endued with a fpiritual life; and the dead, that is, perfons dead in trefpaffes Eph. ii. 1. and fins, or void of spiritual sense and activity. But the difficulty is not fo mighty as to force us upon so remote and absonous interpretations, St. Paul having plainly enough fhewed us how to understand his words, and how to folve the knot propounded; that by the living are to be understood those who shall be found, as it were furprised, alive at our Lord's coming; by the dead, all other perfons, who, from the beginning before that time, had deceased, and should be raised up at the found of the last trump; This we fay to you, faith he to the Theffalonians, 1 Theff. iv. in the word of the Lord, that we which live, remaining at 15. the prefence of the Lord, fhall not prevent them which are afleep. Our Lord is therefore supposed by the Apostle to find some alive at his coming; wherefore, that which is affirmed concerning all men being appointed to taste death, (being otherwise, as the inftances of Enoch and Elias fhew, liable to exception,) is to be understood, by a fynecdoche very ordinary in fuch cafes, for the incomparably greater part of men; for all indeed, but one generation; or with this abatement, all but thofe whofe death fhall be prevented by our Lord's appearance; (the which is fet out as very fudden and unexpected, like the coming of a thief in the night ;) even those men also being in nature and condition mortal like others, although accidentally thus escaping the actual stroke of death. Neither fhall even those persons be fo exempted from death, but that they must undergo fomewhat equivalent thereto; a change, which shall render them alike prepared for judgment with those who had undergone death; for, Behold, 1 Cor. xv. faith St. Paul again to the Corinthians, I tell you a myfte- 51. ry; We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed, in an inftant, in the twinkling of an eye: which words VOL. V. SERM. alone do with fufficient evidence declare the meaning of XXXIII. this distinction between quick and dead. The fum is, that 4 all perfons, none excepted, of what condition or quality, what nation or time, what fex or what age foever, shall be exposed to the judgment; high and low, rich and poor, wife and fimple, learned and ignorant, good and bad; the mightiest princes and lords, no less than the meanest subjects and flaves; the subtlest statesmen and deepest scholars, no less than the fillieft idiots: in a word, most univerfally all without any distinction, any privilege, any acceptance of perfons, all and every one must certainly appear at this bar, muft undergo this trial, muft here receive their sentence and doom, muft undergo reward or punishment accordingly. IV. The doctrinal part I have thus gone through of this grand point; it remaineth to make some application thereof. The confidering it is indeed most neceffary, and exceedingly profitable in many respects: there is no kind of virtue or good practice, which the ferious confideration thereof is not apt to produce; no good affection, which it may not serve to excite; no good duty, to which it doth not powerfully engage us: there is likewife no ill paffion, which it may not help to quell or reprefs; no bad defign or action, which it may not effectually deter or discourage us from. Of fo many particular uses I fhall only touch those which are moft obvious; especially thofe unto which the Scripture doth expressly apply the confideration thereof. 1. It greatly doth engage us to be very circumfpect in all our converfation, and vigilant over our ways; for fince by irreversible decree it is appointed, that we must render an account of every thought arifing in our mind, (at least of those which find harbour and entertainment there;) of every word that paffeth through our mouth; of every action which we do undertake; what exceeding reason Matt. xxv. have we, with most attentive and accurate regard, to mind whatever we do? Since it is certain, that for all these things we shall be judged, but uncertain to us when we Rev. iii. 3. fhall be called thereto; how watchful are we concerned 13. χχίν. 42, 44. xvi. 15. |