body! but, O merciful Saviour, pity and forgive my frailty, and folly, my fenfuality, and iniqui "ty! and cleanfe me with thy own precious blood; "to fet me right again, with my holy God. And "preferve me in my integrity and purity, my faith "and affiance in my glorious head: That thou "mayft prefent me without fpot or blemish, thro' thy own unexceptionable holinefs and infinite me"rits, O my bleffed Redeemer. Amen."

Mr

MEDITATION XLIV.

Of the day of judgment.

foul, what thou haft fo often heard, and profeffed ftill to believe, that there will be a day when Jefus Chrift, the Son of God, fhall come to judge the quick and the dead; art thou not clearly convinced, and fully perfuaded of it? when even nature gives thee fuch intimations, out of which thou mayft fpell it: and the confideration of thy own frame will help fo much to confirm thee in it. For as thou haft reafon, to difcern good and evil; and a law to go by; and a will to chufe for thyself; and a God that made thee fuch a kind of creature, to be responsible to him: well mayft thou expect to be called to account. The very confcience, which teafes thee, for the evil which thou doft, and fills thee with dread to answer for it, after thou haft done it; gives thee ftrong prefages of the judgment approaching, to which thou art going: and whereto that confcience within thee, is as heaven's apparitor, to give thee fummons. Yea all the inequa lity in God's providential difpenfations, whereby it

fo

fo often here goes ill with the good, and well with the bad; may it not awaken thine, as it has done the confideration of all the thinking part of the world; to conclude, that there muft and shall be yet, fuch a turning of the fcale, and decifion of every particular cafe, as fhall make the juftice of Heaven, which feems fo much clouded at prefent, fhine brightly forth, to the open view of all the world?

But beyond all these ftrong prefumptions of thy own, my foul, there is the plain revelation of God, to put the thing paft all peradventure; "that God "has appointed a day, wherein he will judge the "world in righteoufnefs," Acts xvii. 31. "And "after death, the judgment," Heb. ix. 27. And indeed all the great promifes and threatenings, as well as the precepts of the gofpel, have fuch a reference to it, that thou must reject this whole gofpel, before thou canft difbelieve it. What remains therefore, but that thou turn thy thoughts towards it, much muse upon it; and bend all thy care, to make ready for it? O look forward then, and forefee that time, in the evening of time; when there fhall be a general rendezvous of all the children of Adam together; and the Lord fhall come to reckon with all his fervants, how they have acted their parts here on the prefent ftage of this world: when the fun fhall grow black as a fack-cloth of hair, and the moon be turned into blood; and the ftars of heaven fall down upon the earth; and the firmament fhrink up as a parchment fcroll; and every mountain and ifle be removed out of their places: and all the prefent face of things fhall vanish; and this world be arraigned in flames; and ungodly men be driven out of their holds, no longer to find any harbour in that world which they now prefer above God; and make it their armour and garrifon, in which to fortify themselves against him: when they fhall fee

the

the very laft of all their portion in this life; yea and fee the very inftruments of their pleasure, turned into a devouring fire, to encircle and torment them. "When the Lord himself fhall defcend from heaven, "with a fhout, with the voice of the archangel, "and with the trump of God," Theff. iv. 16. And the Lord Jefus be revealed from heaven, "with his mighty angels, in flaming fire," z Theff. i. 7, 8. When the thrones fhall be erected, and the books opened; and all that were dead fhall thereafter be judged; and irreverfible fentence upon cvery one fhall be paffed; for which they muft for ever abide, without any appeal to another tribunal. When all fhall be judged, according to what they have been and done; not only for grofs fins, against the light of nature; but for ftifling convictions, and withstanding good motions, and hiding their talents, and lofing their time, and neglecting and abufing mercies; for not taking warnings, nor believing the reports of God's meffengers: and for doing the tempter's work upon others; to feduce them from God, and their duty; and pull them into the fnare and condemnation of the devil: yea for their luftings, and fecret fins, and wicked intrigues, closely conveyed from the obfervation of the world: "God fhall judge the fecrets of men by Jefus "Chrift," Rom. ii. 16. All fhall come out; and nothing be fo hid, but that day of manifeftation fhall reveal it. Nor fhall any efcape the trial: but "all must appear before the judgment-feat of

Jefus Chrift," 2 Cor. v. 10. "The dead small "and great fhall ftand before God," Rev. xx. 12. even the greatest must not then think to take state upon them, and fend their excufes, to be absent: nor the pooreft think themselves too inconfiderable, there to be taken notice of. And even the most abject wretch, that lies loweft in the world, and is fo much the contempt. of the proud, as not to be thought

thought worth their looking upon: yet has he as precious a foul as any, to fave or lofe: and therefore fhall have as fair and full a hearing, as the biggeft of the world's grandees. And the domineering tyrants, the ftrutting gallants, and the fcornful wantons, that take fo much upon them, above all others, muft yet ftand upon a level with the reft, naked and trembling to give up their laft accounts. The sprightly youngfter alfo, that fets death and judgment furtheft from him; till they are even defied by him; counting that his youth muft bear him out to live even as he lift: yet even for all the fins of his youth, "God will bring him into judgment," Ecclef. xi. 9. For the Lord has but one and the fame rule of judgment, by which he will proceed upon all: and "that is according to the gospel,” Rom. ii. 16. And therefore as they conform to it, or fwerve from it; fo fhall they receive their portion at the hands of their Judge.

And what fhall 1 anfwer then for my finful felf, O Lord, when thou fhalt bring me into judgment ! I dread the trial of thy juft tribunal: my flefh trembles for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judg

ment.

But confider this, my foul; is there no way to be tried, but by my works? no, the gofpel affures me of it. Yet let me expound this in fuch manner, as not to deftroy that doctrine of juftification by faith only; which is the best hold, that I know of even for the holieft Chriftian in the world. Thus then I take it, that unbelievers fhall be judged in ftrictness according to their works; without any of that faith in Chrift, which they would not fecure to themselves. But believers fhall be judged by their works, with refpect alfo to their faith in the bleffed Saviour; which will be the main confideration that turns the scale, to fave them; because," he that believeth on the Son of God, is not condemned,

"but

"but hath everlasting life," John iii. 18, 38. Yet shall their works be called over in that public judg. ment, as the indications of their faith: and indeed, not good, but as fpringing from the root. Now if

God be not righteous, thus to take all men as he finds them; "how then shall he judge the world?” Rom. iii. 6. But yet should he enter into judgment with the very best man in the world, exactly and ftrictly according to his works; without any regard to his faith in the Lord Jefus : O then who at all could he faved? when alas, not a juft man upon earth, but fins daily and fo had he his due defert, would perish eternally. I dare not therefore think of any fuch judging according to works, but what leaves room ftill for the healings and referves, made by repentance, and faith in our Saviour's blood. And O what works can the Lord fee, but what himself has wrought in us? yea, what faith, but that which is his own gift to us? yet it is his righteous judgment ftill: because according to the meafures, which God himself hath fet in his holy word. Nor is he any refpecter of perfons, to acquit and fave the penitent and faithful, even with all their failings, and their fins: because their repentance (in the gofpel-computation) is counted for the undoing of what they have misdone: And their faith in Christ transfers their guilt upon him; and also makes his righteousness their own.

What time I am afraid then, to find my fins produced against me, in the judgment, for which peradventure, I have efcaped fhame here in the world : O how fhall I give thee any hope and comfort, my foul, but by virtue of this belief, that the repented fins of my life (though they fhall not be ftifled, in the final audit, fo that I fhall hear of them no more; yet) I fhall not hear of them, to my confufion, and condemnation; but together with the fins, my repentance alfo and faith fhall be recited: and

then