stantly equal in all particulars of the same kind; and always continue to be so in those creatures which are not capable of either infection from without or corruption from within. And such are all living creatures, besides man; which neither sway the rule of nature, nor are swerved from it, but are always constantly and equally guided by it, as having no other principle from without to corrupt or control it. But with men it is far otherwise; for in them those notions of nature that are born with them may and do receive augmentation or diminution, alteration or corruption, from some other principles either without us or within us. For instance, those inborn notions, that there is a God, that there will be a reward for those that live well, and a punishment for those that live ill, and that we should do unto others as we would have others do unto us, and the like, may and do receive augmentation from divine revelation, and from right reason, and from a good, either religious or moral education and conversation; so that what was imprinted in us by nature, may be and is improved and confirmed in us by other principles; and therefore I will not deny, but a Christian may have a more constant and more confirmed and more perfect knowledge both of a God and of a judgment to come, and of that fundamental equity which ought to be betwixt one man and another, than he that hath no knowledge of these and the like things, but by the light of nature only. And by the same reason one Christian may have a more constant, distinct, and perfect knowledge of the same truths than another Christian, according as the one may be more or less enlightened by those higher principles than the other, or may make a better or a worse use of them. Again: as the knowledge we have by instinct may be augmented and improved, confirmed and perfected; so it may be lessened and weakened, defaced and corrupted; nay, and for a time so obscured, as it may seem both to ourselves and others to be quite extinguished, and that either by our own depraved reason, together with our perverse will and affections from within us, or by an evil education, or a worse conversation from without us, which many times infuse such opinions, (both concerning God and ourselves) into us, as are quite contrary to and destructive of our first notions; and yet because they are more suitable to our perverse will and affections, they are frequently received and defended by our depraved reason against the light of nature itself. As a man may easily perceive, that will but read attentively the first and second chapters of Saint Paul's epistle to the Romans, where the apostle having laid it down for an undoubted conclusion, that the law, (he means the moral law,) or the fundamental notions of our duty towards God and man, was written by nature in the heart of all the Gentiles, and has proved it to be so, because their consciences did justify them when they did well, and accuse them when they did ill; yet he affirms likewise, that this very law (though written in their hearts by nature) was so obscured, and almost quite erased from their judgment, by their more perverse wills and affections, that as they worshipped beasts for God, so they made beasts of themselves, and behaved themselves worse than beasts to one another. This behaviour does no way invalidate the forcibleness of this argument, but rather intimates a deep stupefaction by a long, inveterate habit of ill, fallen on their minds. So that, to conclude this point, there may be and is a natural knowledge in all men of a future judgment, as well as the existence of a God; though in some perhaps the impression of either of these truths is not always active or operative; for we see that some men are grown to such a habit of sensuality, or brutality, that they do nothing almost according to reason; and yet I hope that no man will from thence conclude, that such men are not reasonable creatures, or that they have no such natural principle or faculty as reason at all in them. And let this suffice for our couviction in point of judgment or conscience, that there shall be a day of judgment after this life; which was my first general. I am therefore now, in the Second place, to inquire (as far as the light of divine revelation will enable me) what manner of thing this judgment or last doom will be. Know, then, that the great appearance, trial, or judgment which my text speaks of, is the general or grand assize of the whole world, held in a heavenly high court of justice by our Saviour, to hear, examine, and finally determine, of all thoughts, words, and actions, that ever were thought, spoken, or committed, together with the causes, occasions, circumstances, and consequences of all and every one of them, and accordingly to pronounce an irrevocable sentence either of absolution or condemnation upon all men. In which solemn description you have, 1st, The Judge. 2dly, The parties to be judged. 3dly, The things controverted, or for what they shall be judged. 4thly, The form of this trial, or the manner of proceeding that shall be held in it. 5thly and lastly, The sentence itself, with the issue and execution of it. judge, as he is God; because none but God has jurisdiction over all the parties that are to be tried at that judgment, which are angels as well as men, princes as well as subjects, and the greatest peers as well as the meanest peasants. Now, though one creature may have jurisdiction over another, nay, over many other creatures, yet no one has or can have authority over all his fellows, this being a royalty or prerogative of the Creator himself only. Again: Christ must be judge, as he is God, because none but omniscience can discern the main and principal things that shall be there called in question, which are not words and actions only, but the hearts, consciences, thoughts, purposes, and intentions of all men. Lastly: Christ must be judge, as he is God, because none but God can give life and execution to the sentence as pronounced then, whether of absolution or condemnation; for none else can render the creature infinitely and eternally happy, which is the execution of one of the sentences; or, on the other side, render the other part of the sentence of infinite and everlasting misery effectual, but God only; and therefore the judge at that trial must necessarily be God, and consequently this very act or office of Christ, the execution of justice in this judgment, is an irrefragable argument of his godhead. But though God only is or can be our judge at that great tribunal, yet nevertheless he must not be God only, but man likewise; and that first in regard of the judgment itself, to manifest the equity, the indiscriminateness, and the impartiality of it; which might be perhaps doubted of, if the judge were either God or man ouly. For if he were only God, he would be the party offended; and if only man, the person offending and a judgment, though really never so just, may be, or seem to be, suspected to be otherwise, when either of the parties concerned is judge; whereas Christ, being God as well as man, and man as well as God, must needs be acknowledged to be an equal, an indifferent and impartial judge betwixt God and man, as being equally allied unto them both. Again: Christ must be judge as he is man, in regard to the parties triable at that day, whether they be sheep or goats; I mean, whether they be the just that are to be absolved, or the wicked that are to be condemned. For among the just there is none so good but he might fairly be afraid to appear at that judgment, if the same person were not our Saviour who is to be our judge, who if he brought not to the bench with him the pity and compassion of a man, as well as the power and justice of a God; nay, if God at that trial did not look upon us through himself as man, and beholding the merits in his own person, impute them to us, not one of all mankind could be saved. He is to be judge as man, therefore, that the just to be absolved may not fear to appear before him; and he must be judge as man too, that the condemned wicked may have no cause of complaint, how severe usage soever they find from him. For how can even the damned themselves murmur, repine, or except against the judgment, where the trial (as I shall shew you presently) is by the evidence of their own conscience, and their condemnation pronounced by that judge, who laid down his life to save sinners, and consequently cannot possibly be imagined to condemn any but such as would not be saved by him. Lastly; Christ must be judge, as he is man, in regard of all mankind, or in regard of humanity itself; I mean for the dignifying and exalting of human nature that as the nature of man was debased, and brought down to the lowest degree of meanness in the person of our Saviour, in his birth, life, and at his death; so the same nature, in the same person, might be exalted and raised up to so high a degree of power, majesty, and honour, that not only men that had despised him, and devils that had tempted him, but even the blessed and glorious angels themselves, whose comfort and assistance he once stood in need of, should fall down, and tremble at his presence. And thus much for the judge at this awful trial. The second thing considerable in the description I gave you of this judgment are the parties to be judged; and those, briefly, (to speak nothing of the evil angels, who are then also to receive their full and final doom,) are all persons, of all sorts, qualities, conditions, and professions, young and old, rich and poor, high and low, one with another. For at this bar, princes have no prerogatives, the nobles have no privileges, nor the clergy exemptions and immunities, nor the lawyer any more favour than his client; the rich shall neither be regarded for their bags, nor the poor pitied for his poverty; but all indifferently shall have the same judge and the same trial, the same evidence and the same witness; and if their cases be alike, (how different soever their persons or estates may be here,) their fate shall there be the same: and thus much for the parties to be judged. The next thing is, thirdly, the matters that shall be questioned at that trial; and those are not our actions only, but our words also, and not only our words, but our thoughts too, and not only our thoughts, but our very inclinations or dispositions themselves likewise; together with the place, time, occasion, intention, and end, for which every thing was done, thought, or spoken, and that from the first birth or instant of time, to the very last periodical minute of it. And then, fourthly, for the manner of proceeding, there will be no occasion for examination of witnesses, or reading depositions ; there will be no allegata or probata; for every man shall be indicted and arraigned, cast or acquitted, condemned or absolved, by the testimony of his own conscience, which shall readily, though never so unwillingly, assent to whatever the Judge shall charge it with, whether it be good or evil; whether it be for him or against him. The book of life shall be opened, wherein is registered and recorded whatever good or evil, at any time, from the beginning of the world till the end of it, has been done, spoken, consented to, or imagined by any or all mankind: and what is more wonderful, this is written in such a character, that all men (of what nation or language soever) must needs understand and acknowledge the truth of it; this book being nothing else but the counterpart (as it were) of every mau's conscience, which God keeps by him as an undeniable evidence to convince all men with at the last judgment. 66 irrecoverably, and everlastingly miserable. But why do I compare things together so infinitely disproportionate, as temporal with eternal, corporeal with spiritual, the death of the body alone, with the death of soul and body too, or the benches of men with the tribunal of God? No, my beloved, if the sentence of that Judge were like those of ours here, it would be well for the greatest part of mankind; for then perhaps it might either be appealed from, or reversed; or if neither, yet at worst it might be endured, without their being utterly and for ever undone by it. Here on earth, perhaps, appeals may be lodged, and carried from one place to another, from an inferior to a superior authority, But at the last day, to whom shall we appeal from God our sovereign and supreme judge? Or what higher court of judicature is there than that of heaven? Lastly when our Advocate himself coudemns us, who will be so compassionate, or dare be so impudent as to plead for us? When, therefore, this sentence is once pro In which I shall now consider the fifth and last thing proposed to this description, viz. the sentence itself, (whether of absolution or condemnation,) the form of both which is judicially set down by Christ himself, (Matt.nounced, there is no more hope left either of xxv. 34.) That of absolution in these terms, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;" but of this sentence the present occasion of our humiliation will not permit me to speak, as too triumphant a topic for this day. That other sentence, therefore, (the sad but seasonable object of our present meditation,) you may find in the 41st verse of the same chapter, in these words, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." A dismal and woful sentence, my beloved, a sentence carrying hell and horror in the very sound of it; whilst every syllable does, as it were, stab the soul, and every word bring with it a new death (if I may so say without a paradox) to those that can never die. Have we any of us ever been present, when the sentence but of a bodily death has been pronounced upon a prisoner at the bar? and may not we observe what horror and amazement does instantly seize the poor wretch, what a deadly paleness covers his face, what a ghastly distraction rises in his countenance, what a faltering in his speech, what a trembling in his joints, what a cold sweat over his whole body? and yet all these were but weak and faint expressions of what his soul suffered. If any of us, who have seen and observed all this, had but once felt in ourselves what we have seen in others; then perhaps we might guess, and yet but guess, at the fear and trembling, the horror and amazement, which will not only seize and lay hold upon, but devour and swallow up the soul of man, upon the hearing of that dreadful knell, that direful and fatal sentence, which will at once both pronounce, and make him unspeakably, inconceivably, reprieve or pardon, of ease or intermission, of alteration or ending; but (which is the misery of miseries) that torment which is intolerable for a moment, must last for ever: a word that must vex and rack the understanding, puzzle and weary the imagination, distract and confound all the powers and faculties of the soul. What pain is there, or can there be so little, as man could be content on any consideration to endure for ever? What man amongst us is there so poor or so covetous, as that he would be hired, or so stout or so patient, (if he were hired,) that he could endure but the aching of one tooth in extremity, if he hoped for no end of his pain? And yet the toothache, the gout, the stone, and the strangury, the rack, and the wheel, with the rest of our natural discases or inventions of cruel ingenuity, are but as so many flea-bitings, or inconsiderable trifles, compared with the torments of the damned. All pains here are either tolerable, or not durable; either we may suffer them, or at least shall sink under them. But there, there I say, in hell, is acuteness of sense with acuteness of torment, extremity of pain and extremity of feeling, insupportable anguish, and yet ability to bear it, where the fire always burns, and yet consumes not, where fuel is still devoured, and yet it wastes not; where, if a man had a world of earth, he would give it all for one drop of water, and yet the whole ocean would not cool him; where there is perpetual darkness, without rest, continual night, void of sleep and (to conclude what never shall be concluded indeed) where there is always distraction without madness, dying without death, misery without pity, and wishing without hope. Such things as these cau : hardly be thought of, much less dwelt on, without the greatest horror. If Saint Paul, a prisoner at the bar, discoursing on this argument, could make an insulting Felix tremble; how much greater fear ought they to have, who, living in any known breach of God's commands, or open sin unrepented of, are therefore much more concerned in that future judgment than Felix could be! He, you know, was a heathen, but we are Christians; and you may be assured the least Christian sinner is greater than the greatest among the heathens: because they can sin but against the light of nature, and their own reason only; whereas wicked Christians sin not only against the light of nature and reason, but against divine revelation in the known precepts of the law, and those plainer ones of the gospel also; at once most desperately slighting the terrible threats of the one, and most profanely despising the gracious offers of the other. So that if the honour either of God's mercy or of his justice be dear unto him, it must necessarily be easier, not only for Felix, that never heard of Christ, but even for Pontius Pilate himself, who condemned him, than it will be for any wicked, impenitent Christian at the day of judgment. And therefore for application of all unto ourselves, let us now (according to my third and last general) endeavour to be informed how far we ourselves are like to be concerned in the future judgment, taken (as I have taken it all this while) in the worst sense, and consequently how we ought to think of and prepare for it. Well then, if there be indeed such a judgment to come, as I hope I have fairly proved, we may from thence conclude, 1st, That the greatest pretenders to wisdom in this world are not the wisest men; I mean those great Ahithophels, those subtle steersmen of states and kingdoms, those deep politicians, and civil oracles, (as it were,) of courts and councils, who think this doctrine of a future judgment, as well as most of the other mysteries of the Christian religion, to be indeed nothing else but reasons of state, or the politic devices and inventions of the wiser sort of men, (they mean such as they themselves are,) to keep the weaker judgments and stronger passions in the greatest awe, and so to make them the more pliable and conformable to the laws and commands of men. So that the end of all religion is (as these political Christians suppose) terminated in this life; and that whatsoever foolish bookworms may talk of after this life, whether it be the resurrection of the body, or the appearance of both body and soul in another place, with the eternal existence of them both in extremity either of pain or pleasure, with whatsoever else our Christian faith obliges us to believe, in order to another life, they are but so many bugbears to fright children withal. Or at best, (in those men's opinion,) they are but the vain speculations of idle and curious wits, or the issue and product of melancholy brains, and fitter for the exercise of men's disputative faculties in the schools, than for the object of a wise man's hopes or fears in any of his actions, as having indeed nothing of solid truth or reality in them. But how miserably mistaken and shamefully deceived will these giant-wits, these mighty Solomons, (as they are now thought,) then find themselves to be, when awakened by the sudden, the general, and fearful alarm of the last trumpet out of that sleep, which they well hoped would have been endless, they shall see themselves (to their inexpressible horror and amazement) first summoned and haled to judgment, and afterwards hurried and dragged away by stranger and subtler spirits than themselves, to torment and execution; where their senses will quickly convince their intellects, that what they formerly supposed but a chimera, an idle speculation, or at best but a politic invention, is indeed a sad, a serious, and severe truth. Neither will it be the least part of these men's hell, that they shall eternally reproach themselves with folly, after so exalted an opinion of their own wisdom. To proceed, again, in the second place; all other hypocrites, as well as atheistical statesmen, are fools also; I say all other hypocrites, because indeed these Christian politicians, or politic Christians I just now mentioned, are a sort of hypocrites, namely, moral or civil hypocrites, (as I may so call them,) because they seem to believe what they do not, and enjoin others what they care not for themselves; I mean the belief of Christian doctrines and duties, and that for a moral and civil respect or end only; to wit, in order to the preservation of public peace and welfare in the state; which certainly were a very good end, if it were not their only end in so doing. But the other hypocrites I now speak of are religious hypocrites, and not so called because they are more religious than the other, but because they are such hypocrites as to pretend religion for their main end, though indeed they intend and use it only as a means to advance and compass, not the public, but their own particular designs by it, (whether they be honest or dishonest,) and that often to the prejudice of the public interest both of church and state; nay sometimes, (as in our late intestine broils,) to the apparent ruin or hazard of them both. And therefore this kind of hypocrites, as they are much more wicked and mischievous here in this world, so (supposing a future reckoning) they will be far more miserable in another state, than those hypocrites or atheists lately mentioned. Indeed, if God was as casily to be deceived as men are, with false, specious shows and pretences; or if these hypocrites could hope to work upon God, as they once did upon the populace, by false words and flattering insinuations; or, lastly, if they could make God (as they would fain have made the king) believe, that the demolishing of his palaces, the robbing him of his revenues, the persecuting of his ministers by their false interpreting and misapplying of his word, nay, and by driving himself (as much as in them lies) out of his own kingdom, the church; if they can, I say, when they come to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, make him believe that these and all other things they have done of the like kind, were all of them done in order to his service, and with an intention to make him a much more glorious God than he was before; then let them be thought as wise as they would seem religious; nay, let them name their own places and preferments in heaven, as they did here on earth in the time of their usurpation; for certainly no preferment can hardly be adequate to such transcendent spirits and undertakings. And yet all this would be no difficult matter for them to bring to pass; if either, in the first place, they might always be owned as the highest and supreme judicatory; that is, if they might be hereafter, as they will needs be here, their own judges; or, secondly, if they may not be their own judges, or absolved by their own votes, yet if they might at least be but tried (as they think it very equitable they should be) by their own ordinances, that is, by laws and rules of their own composure, without and contrary to the consent of the supreme legislature; or, lastly, if at that great assize they can neither be their own judges, nor be tried by their own ordinances, yet at least if they may but have their own preachers or advocates, (who pleaded so powerfully for them to the people,) to plead for them likewise before God; and withal, if those advocates of theirs may but be allowed to interpret that sentence which shall then be pronounced, with the same assurance and falsity as they have interpreted others of holy writ; neither they themselves, nor any of their party, will run any great hazard. For then (I mean if their scribes and pharisees, if their doctors of the law and interpreters of the gospel, may be believed) the meaning of cursed" shall be the contrary, “Come ye blessed;" and on the contrary, the blessing shall tacitly imply only a curse; as if that which was spoken to those on the left hand was meant to those on the right; and the words directed to those on the right intended for those on the left hand; it being the usual interpretation of those doctors to make the sense of God's word (how opposite soever to the letter of it) to be always in favour of themselves, and to condemn their foes; who because they are enemies to the good old cause, must needs be esteemed God's also. But whether this supposition be true or false, "Go ye (with all other controversies betwixt us and them,) they will be fully, finally, and impartially determined, when they and we shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ; "For we shall all appear," says my text; that is, we shall not only be there, but be present every one of us in his proper shape and likeness; no disguising of persons, no palliating of actions, no concealing of purposes, no dissembling of intentions at all there: "For we must all appear,' says my text, γυμνοὶ καὶ TET Paxniquevo, (as the same apostle says in another place,) naked and barefaced, and laid, as it were, flat upon our backs, not before a close or a grand committee of ignorant and partial men, who may deceive and be deceived, but before Christ, the most exact searcher and infallible discerner of all hearts; and before Christ attended on by all the holy angels and blessed saints, amongst whom, to their greater confusion, hypocrites shall perhaps see some sitting at Christ's right hand, whom they have formerly condemned and executed as malignants and delinquents. And amongst these, I doubt not but they will see him whom they have pierced, (I mean not Christ God, but God's Christ, or God's anointed,) that blessed saint and martyr their own sovereign, whom they so inhumanly and barbarously murdered; and whom, though they would not look upon as an object either of reverence or pity here, they shall, though unwillingly, behold him as an object of horror and confusion there: an object which, next unto hell itself, shall be most dreadful and terrible unto them, whilst his wounds, bleeding afresh at the sight of his murderers, shall at once upbraid, accuse, and condemn them. Howsoever, I am sure they must appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that Christ who is truth itself, and in whose mouth there was no guile, and therefore he cannot choose but abhor an hypocrite beyond all sinners; that Christ, who would not have his own life defended against the unjust violence of the lawful magistrate, and therefore cannot endure a rebellious hypocrite, of all hypocrites, nor a rebel upon a false pretence of religion, of all rebels. Lastly, before that Christ that knows well enough that his name and his worship, his word and his sacraments, prayer, fasting, and the rest of his sacred ordinances, were only made a stale by the hypocrites of those times, to conceal, to make way for, and to compass their own covetous, malicious, or ambitious ends; and consequently, whilst they bragged of setting him upon his throne, they placed a reed in his hand instead of a sceptre, and crowned him in jest, whilst they crucified him in earnest; and what is this, but to mock Christ himself as well as the world here? And therefore they themselves shall be mocked by Christ before all the world hereafter; for as |