Originally from here.
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A
SERMON ON THE
FINAL JUDGMENT,
PREACHED BEFORE THE HOUSE OF PEERS
IN THE
ABBEY-CHURCH AT WESTMINSTER, OCTOBER 1O, 1666,
On the Day appointed for Humiliation after the Great Fire of London.
BY SETH WARD, D.D.,
THEN BISHOP OF EXETER.
SERMON
ON TIE
FINAL JUDGMENT.
Ecl. 11:9.
But know You, that for all these things GOD will bring thee to judgment.
THE great and general design of the ministry and preaching of the gospel, is to bring men to Christianity; not merely in the outward profession, but in the true spirit and power thereof; to the end that they may be justified, and sanctified, and finally saved through CHRIST’ for ever. The particular design of this day’s observation is to ” humble ourselves under the mighty hand of GOD,” in consideration of his judgments, especially that late one, which consumed with fire the ancient and noble metropolis of this nation; and to endeavor to appease the wrath of GOD, gone out against us.
To compass both these designs, 1 know no better expedient, than to reason a while upon the important argument suggested in the text. Who can think upon the conflagration of our late glorious city, and not call to mind the great and terrible day of judgment Who can think seriously of judgment, and not be compelled to come in, (driven to Christianity,) that he may be ” saved from the wrath to come “
The great instructer and example of Christian Preachers (he who says of himself, that CHRIST sent him “to preach, and not to baptize,”) found no means so powerful to persuade men to Christianity as to reason upon this argument; as first to lay before them the terror of judgment, and then (whilst that was warm upon their hearts) to make them a tender of the Gospel. This is the great advantage and use which the Apostle makes of the doctrine of the text. “We must all appear,” says he, “before the judgment-seat of CHRIST:—Knowing therefore the terror of the LORD, we persuade men.”
Upon these considerations I shall, in a practical and familiar way of reasoning, endeavor to imitate our Apostle in this particular. If, in the mean time, it should be unpleasant to hear of the judgment to come, we shall do well to consider what it will be to undergo it. We shall do well to reflect upon our souls, and search out the ground of this unpleasantness. Is it because we do not believe a judgment to come, or because we ourselves shall be brought to judgment Is it because we never consider who it is before whom we must appear, or what things will be charged to our account Is it because we are so far gone in our arrears, that it is to no purpose to call these things into our remembrance—Whatever it may be, we may perhaps hear of that, which may meet with and remove the prejudice and imposture that are upon us. It is neither our negligence nor infidelity that will ” make void the truth of GOD.” Whether we will hear, or whether we will forbear, the words which I have read remain firm and unalterable, and they clearly contain these propositions
I. There is a Judgment to come.
II. You shall be brought to Judgment.
III. GOD will bring thee to Judgment.
IV. GOD will bring thee to Judgment for these things, —the ways of thy heart.
V. GOD will bring thee to Judgment for all these things.
VI. All this is certain and evident; for it is not said Think,” or ” Believe,” but ” Know—that for all these things GOD will bring thee to Judgment.”
1. First then, There is a JUDGMENT TO COME. This is no politic invention found out to fright you from your pleasures; this is no engine of state devised to keep you. in a subordination to your brethren; this is no vain thunder, or foolish fire, to terrify you into a blind obedience; but it is the tenor of the Scripture, the voice of GOD. ” King AGRIPPA, believest you the Prophets I know that you believest,” says ST. PAUL. Brethren, do we believe the Scriptures I hope we do believe them; this we do all profess to believe, so often as we repeat our creed; and I hope the dissoluteness of our times has not yet shattered that foundation of our faith, the ground-work of our’hopes respecting the salvation of our souls. Surely there are rewards for men; ” doubt-less there is a GOD which judges the earth.” What though the foundations of the world be out of course,—the pillar of faith remains unshaken; “the rod of the ungodly shall not for ever rest upon the righteous.” I desire to make a little use of your faith for that which soon will be obtained from your reason. There is a judgment to come; it is as sure as death, nay, far surer; they shall be judged who shall not die, they have been judged who could not die; the one at the end, the other at the beginning of the world.
Before death, SOLOMON tells us, that ” the sun, and the moon, and the light, and the stars shall be darkened.” Before Judgment, a greater than SOLOMON tells us, that ” the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, and the stars shall fall from heaven.” Before the one, ” the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men bow themselves:” before the other, ” the mountains shall quake, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” Before the one, ” we shall rise at the voice of the bird:” before the other, ” at the sound of the trumpet.” Before the one, the silver cord shall be loosed, and the golden bowl broken, and the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern:” before the other, the silver zone of the ecliptic, the golden globe of the sun, and all the heavenly orbs, (the wheel within a wheel,) shall be confounded; the ” heavens shall be rolled as a scroll ” of parchment, and the earth and ” the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” In the one, the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit to GOD that gave it: at the other, the dust shall return from the earth to be as it was, and the spirit from GOD that gave it.
Come now, and let us reason together. Are all these the forerunners and symptoms of ap proaching judgment Then why art you so drowsy, O my careless soul, and why art you so secure within me What strange lethargy has seized on thee ” Awake, you that sleep, and CHRIST shall give thee light.” The time of thy dissolution is coming, and after death the judgment. Retire therefore a while into thyself, and commune with thy heart: enter you into thy closet, and shut thy door. Let us examine ourselves before we come to that strict examiner: let us make a judgment in our expectations before we come to judgment. Do we believe that a judgment will come Then how are we provided against that day Are our accounts ready Art you able to stand in judgment Shall you be clear when you art judged
When PAUL ” reasoned ” before FELIX concerning the ” judgment to come, FELIX trembled; ” and because it was an unpleasant argument, he put it off to another time. There is no doubt but our treacherous hearts would gladly put off these considerations, and-defer them to a more convenient season. But there is no time so convevient as the present, when we are wrought into some apprehension of judgment. If we stay till our present thoughts are over, we shall again be brought to lose the apprehension, and to forget the importance of the judgment; we shall come again to hear the name thereof, and to neglect it as an idle noise, and an empty sound.
Let us therefore not. neglect this opportunity; let ussearch ourselves to the bottom; let us make a discovery of our final resolution, and secret reserves, in reference to Judgment. We profess openly to believe that CHRIST will conic with glary, to judge. both the quick and dead; what are our inward thoughts in that particular, and how are we provided against the day of judgment
There is a Judgment to come; that judgment will be terrible, the examination strict, the condemnation insupportable, and most of us are utterly unprovided. Is it possible, then, that it may be avoided All these things are true in judgments here below, and we see the proof of them at every assize; yet all offenders are not brought to judg went, but many thieves and murderers escape it: may, it be thus in the judgment to come—Is it possible that it may be avoidable
II. A miserable hope, if this be all: for ” You shall be brought to Judgment.” That is the second proposition.
And it contains both the universality and the particularity of the judgment:—” You,” and every man; all sorts of men, and every man of every sort, from him that sitteth on the throne, to her that grindeth in the will: for ” we must all appear before the judgment-seat of CHRIST. It is appointed for all men once to die, and after death the judgment.” Death shall deliver up our souls and bodies to judgment. The grave shall deliver up her spoils; and the bodies of all nien, devoured of beasts, consumed of fire, swallowed by the sea, or scattered to the four winds, shall, ” in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” be brought to judgment.
And shall I here bewail the infirmity, or inveigh against. the negligence of us men, who suffer ourselves to be hurried headlong by the power of our imaginations, against the strivings of our consciences; who suffer our senses to carry away the crown from our understanding, and give up ourselves to the impetuous stream of our passions; who, when we have a full information, a complete judgment, a clear dictate of onscience, yet will suffer all these to he overborne by our passions and imaginations; who having clear and evident principles, can yet doubt of their immediate consequences; or whilst we profess an universal truth, never descend to particulars.
We know there is a vast difference between the things present, and those to come; and yet we form our thoughts of the latter according to the analogy of the former, deluding ourselves with idle and childish imaginations. GOD keeps silence; and we think He is such an one as we. Vengeance is not presently executed; and we set our hearts to do wickedly. We profess that all men must die, and come to judgment; yet we do not really believe that we ourselves shall die, and come to judgment. This is the fountain of our misery, and the original of our spiritual miscarriages. The discovery of the causes and the remedy of this evil, lies in the philosophy concerning human nature; but the thing itself is of every day’s observation. We may recount it in these authentic examples.
DAVID knew full well what belonged to murder and adultery, and what himself had done in the matter of URIAH; yet he cried not out that he had sinned, till NATHAN had charged him, ” You art the man.”
AHAB undoubtedly had read the law of MOSES, and knew the guilt of murder and oppression; yet he goes on triumphantly, he kills and takes possession: but when ELIJAH charges him home, ” In the field of Jezreel shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine;” then he cries out, ” Hash you found me, O mine enemy ” And having applied things particularly to himself, he “rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth;” he ” fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.”
Once more: It is likely, that BELSHAllAR knew that it was unlawful to spoil the house of GOD, to plunder those things which were dedicated to the LORD, and to employ in, his debauch the bowls of the temple; and probably he had seen the hand-writing of the book of GOD to that purpose;—yet all this did not restrain him. But when the fingers wrote upon the wall, then ” his countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.”
This then is the office of the second proposition; it charges us home; it lays down the universal, and it brings it down unto the particular. ” You shall be brought to Judgment.” Thy judgment is unavoidable. And thus thy evasion is crossed, O stupid soul! You art spoiled of thy frivolous ground of hope: you shall surely be cited, and you must appear; if you refuse to come, you shall be brought to judgment. Return then again into thyself, and take a review of thy condition. What will the issue be of that judgment to which you must be brought What hopes are now remaining that you shall not be condemned; or that, when the officers have haled thee before the Judge, you shall not be delivered to the executioners If you art called to examination, can you elude thy Judge by thy wily answers, or can you baffle or suborn the witnesses Can you persuade bhy jury not to find the verdict, or bribe the Judge to favor thee in thy doom Can you withdraw him from the rigour of justice by the mediation of thy friends; or melt him into compassion by the loudness of thy cries, and the sadness of thy lamentation Can you procure a reversion or reprieve of thy sentence, or appeal from thy Judge unto another Can you make an escape from thine executioner Or, lastly, can you stoutly endure the sentence of condemnation These are the hopes of men who are brought to judgment on earth; and why may not some of them be thine No,—you knows all these to be fond impossibilities, dreams, and suggestions of a childish fancy. If once this day be over, and that time come, thy hopes are barely these,—that Omni-science, and Wisdom itself, may be deluded by stupidity; that Omnipotence, and Power itself, may be evaded by poor contemptible infirmity; that Severity, and Justice itself, may be perverted by iniquity! All this is evident by that which follows:
III. ” GOD will bring thee to Judgment.”—And here we are concerned to raise our thoughts, and employ our utmost attention, lest by the prejudice which our idleness has brought upon us, we “treasure up to ourselves wrath against the day of ” judgment. It is true we daily hear of GOD, and receive the names of his attributes into our ears; but we pass over them as if he were like to us, and seldom bestow so much labor as to attain to a just notion of those names. O that the GOD of heaven would afford us here some glimpse of himself; that he would illustrate us with some beam of his majesty; that he would be pleased to visit every unprovided soul, and insinuate into it a full and clear apprehension of this proposition, GOD will bring thee to Judgment.
But how shall we endure to see his face ” No man can see my face and live.” (Exod. xxxiii.) If the Israelites durst not hear him proclaim the law, how shall we endure to hear him pronounce the judgment If the angels veil their faces, not able to behold his excellency, how shall we be affected with his terrors If the cherubim are oppressed with the sight of his glory, what shall we be with the sense of his fury If we find our-selves confounded and swallowed up in inextricable labyrinths, When we set ourselves to consider his attributes, his eternal duration, his unbounded essence, his unconfined presence; with what disposition can we entertain the terror of his judgment, the search of his omniscience, the stroke of his omnipotence If the best and choicest of the saints of GOD have been afraid, and trembled, at the thoughts of judgment, if they have been surprised with horror and confusion at the mere imagination of that dreadful voice, “Arise, and come to judgment,” what shall the worst and most obdurate sinners feel, when they shall be stripped of this cloud of flesh and error, and cited before the great tribunal, to render an account of their creation, preservation, and redemption
What fear, what horror, what agony, will possess thee, O sinful soul, when you shall be brought into a perfect apprehension of thy Judge, and of thyself, and he shall begin to order out, before thee, the things which he has done; when the whole TRINITY shall begin to unfold its common ivork, and that sacred Person, blessed for ever, upon whose shoulder the judgment is laid, shall unfold his peculiar favors to thee, and you must render a severe account of thy returns!
When the mystery of thy creation shall be unveiled to thee; when you shall apprehend thoroughly, what it is to have been fetched out of the dark and barren shade of an eternal privation, and to be put in a capacity of glory: when he shall recount to thee the proceedings of his handy-work, the method of thy making, the several articles and gradations of his providence in the formation of thee; how, at first, he ” poured thee out like milk, and curdled thee like cheese;” how he spun out thine arteries and veins, and ” whilst you Wert yet in thy blood, said unto thee, Live;” how he guarded thee with muscles, strengthened thee with sinews, propped thee with bones, covered thee with skin, furnished thee with organs, endued thee with senses, invested thee with reason, crowned thee with freedom,– enlightened thee with principles of science and conscience, bounded thee by his precepts, encouraged thee by his promises, re-strained thee by his threatenings; when he shall run over the benefits of thy daily preservation, and rigorously examine what you have done for him!
When GOD THE SON shall display to thee what He has clone and suffered for thee, and shall set before thine eyes the great mystery of thy redemption; when he shall bring thee to apprehend the price which he has paid, and that ransom which you have not regarded; when it will not he in thy power to pass over these considerations as now you dost, but they shall be forced into the centre of thy soul; when you shall have a clear sight of the abasement of a GOD incarnate; when you shall know how to be moved at the sight of a despised and an abused GODHEAD!
When he shall charge thee with the blueness of those stripes, and the ghastliness of those wounds, which you have made; when he shall rehearse to thee the miseries of his death; when he shall recount to thee the woundings of the taunts and reproaches, the smart of the whips, the terror of the agony which made him sweat great drops of blood, the pricks of the thorns, the piercing of the nails, the lancing of the spear, and the ineffable horror of the dereliction under which he cried out, in the bitterness of his soul, “My GOD, my GOD, why has you forsaken me! “—And when he shall call upon thee to answer for the wounds that you have made, to render him his blood that you have spilt, to account to him for that life of which you have bereft him, to show him the fruit of all his pains and sufferings, and to present him thy returns for all these benefits and favors,-then tell me what you wilt answer, O stupid soul How art you prepared to reply
Wilt you deny that he has done these things for thee Or, caust you show as much for him Have you re-turned him that being which he has given thee, though that would come infinitely short of thy obligation Hasa you sacrificed thyself for his benefit, or abased thyself for his commodity What wilt you plead when you art called The time is coming, thy judgment is hastening, thine account is unavoidable, thy Judge inexorable!
But it may be replied, ” Alas! what could I have done for him What profit could I have brought him, if I should have pined away in the exercise of devotion, and been eaten up with zeal If I should have’spent my substance in burnt-offerings, or calves of a year old’ If I should have presented him’ with thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil’ To what purpose then should I endeavor that which I could not have performed Why should I trouble myself with vain attempts, and spend my strength about that which I never could accomplish
Neither, if 1 be righteous, is He the better; nor, if I be wicked, is He the worse.’ Our goodness extends not to Him. If you sinnest, what dost you against Him If you be righteous, what receiveth he at thine hand’ “—Is this then the excuse I need not stand to unfold the disingenuousness and the madness of this evasion. How-ever, though these things shall be urged upon us, they are not all; these offer themselves in the consideration of the person of the Judge, but are not all the matter of thy judgment. For,
IV. You shall be brought to Judgment for these things:—there is the matter of thy judgment.
V. For All these things:—there is the extent of it. Because I desire not to be tedious, we will put these two together.
And now we are descended from these less familiar considerations, to which we were forced to strain our understandings in the contemplation of our Judge, into the compass of our own sphere, and to the survey of our own operations; we are come from the incomprehensible ways of GOD, to the ways of our own hearts. ” Walk in the ways of thy heart. But know, that for all these things GOD will bring thee to judgment.” In the judgment of this life, men are tried for the works of their hands, or the words of their mouths; for theft or murder, for slander or treason, men may be brought to judgment; but thought is free. He is dealt with, as if he had lived well, who has kept his crimes close; the crafty politician and the concealed hypocrite escape. Hereafter the case will be quite contrary; the judgment takes in primarily the ways of the heart, and the words and actions only as they proceed from them. Wherefore let us withdraw for a time into ourselves, and endeavor to mete out the extent of this proposition: For all the ways of the hearts of men, GOD will bring them to Judgment.”
How would it trouble us to recount and bring to memory every thought of but one day, and how many disorders and irregularities should we find in such a
reflection How do our thoughts float upon out Inains, and we know neither whence they come, nor what becomes of them! When they break in upon our minds, we cannot hold them; and when they are gone from us, (as it was with NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S dream,) it is not in our power. to recover them. How many roving fancies present themselves unto us in a moment; and how many sudden and imperfect complacencies and distastes arc raised by them! Leave but thyself unbound, unfixed (by hearing, or reading, or business) for an hour; and then tell inc what suppositions, and consequences, and resolutions you have made, and how you have felt thyself to stray upon the borders of lust or envy, of pride or anger, of discontent or melancholy! O that you would but reflect a little upon your souls, and consider how many wandering thoughts have broken in upon your minds, since I began to speak of this important subject. You might thus save me the labor of further speaking, and raise yourselves to that which I endeavor. I fear you might find, among your sacred thoughts, a mixture of others very unsuitable; of envious, of ambitious, of covetous, of idle thoughts. All these are the matter of our future judgment: however they slightly pass us here, they are noted in the book of GOD; and when that book shall be opened, they will be charged to our account.
You tellest my wanderings,” (says the Psalmist;) ” Are not these things noted in thy book ” I have already said enough to take up the consideration of the remainder of our time: but our hearts being too heavy, and our cars too dull of hearing, to be moved with generals, I must crave leave to run over the heads of some particulars. You must give an account of all things committed to thee, inward or outward, natural or spiritual, thy senses and thy understanding, thine outward and thine inward faculties: —Whether you have kept a constant covenant with thine eyes, and has never suffered them to rove in disorder: whether you have bowed thine ears to discipline, and never let them be open to vain entertainments: whether thy taste has been moderated by the necessities of nature, and the laws of temperance, and never let loose according to the lust of not: whether thy hands have been wholly employed in the works of GOD, and never been instruments to the machinations of the Devil: whether thy speech has never uttered any idle words, but ever ” administered grace to the hearers:” whether thy feet have only traced the ways of GOD, and never ” stood in the way of sinners:”
What has been the exercise of thine inward faculties, thine apprehensions, and thy desires: whether thy fancy has always been employed in. administering help to thine understanding, and never afforded incentives to t by vile affections: whether thy memory has been taken rip with the things which GOD has done, and CHRIST has suffered for thee, and has afforded no place to vanity: what have been the object, measure, end, and circumstances, of thy love, hatred, desire, aversion, delight, sadness, hope, despair, fear, boldness, anger, jealousy, and compassion:
How you have managed thine understanding, and imtu owed thy contemplative and active principles: whether you have advanced in the discovery of eternal truths, or herded with the beasts that perish: whether you have cherished the principles, the dictates, and reflections of thy conscience, and never rebelled against them: how you have determined the freedom of thy will, in thine election and consent, thy fruition and use, when good and evil, life and death, have been set before thee.
How you have behaved thyself in spirituals, in gifts and graces: whether you have accepted that which has been offered, and improved what you have accepted, or hid it in a napkin:—1n outward things, how you have acquired, and how you have managed thine estate: how you have behaved thyself in thy relations, public and private, in thy charge, and in thy duty.—But the time would fail me to reckon up a considerable part of the exercises and objects of the ” ways of the hearts ” of men: and yet all these, and many more, are but the simple elements, and common heads, of our account.
Consider then, O negligent soul! if you couldest reckon up the ways of thy heart, in any one of these kinds; if you couldest call to mind but every idle word whereof you must give an account, or thy motions upon every thing you have heard, and remember, in any one of these elements, what you have done, or else omitted; then tell me how wouldest you find thyself possessed, and how wouldest you be disposed to judgment Wouldest you deem it needless or idle to call it be-times to thy remembrance Wouldest you drive off thy thoughts of it to the time of sickness, or to the hour of death, and rudely throw thyself upon it—But then, try and examine all these together; contemplate a little the mixtures and combinations of them; these will afford us many millions of millions of “ways,” (far exceeding the varieties of the corporeal nature, which proceed from the mixture of fewer elements,) so many as it will utterly confound our thoughts to number. Who can reckon up the ” ways of the hearts” of the children of men ” Who can understand his errors “
And now, that He who has the world to uphold, the planets and stars to guide, and the course of nature to maintain, should keep a register of our impertinencies, and bring to judgment all the ways of men; (the traces of a ship in the sea, or of a serpent upon a rock;)—who has believed our report We are apt to believe it cannot be, and to say, ” Surely he sees not these things: tush, he cares not for them.” This is indeed the last resort of the treacherous hearts of men, the grand imposture, which may be resolved into a species of atheism and infidelity. O! if I should use the language of the Scriptures, I must call thee fool and beast, to doubt of that which is plain and evident., and to disbelieve that which may be known. —This article concerning the judgment to come, is not a problem of philosophy, to be disputed this way and that way, with equal probability. ST. PAUL speaks of the terror of judgment under terms which imply certainty; and a kind of demonstrative evidence; ” KNOWING the terror of the Lotto.” And here in the text it is not said, Think, or Believe; but ” Know that for all these things GOD will bring thee to Judgment.”
VI. He is a fool that has said in his heart there is no Goo; and he that thinks he has no understanding may well be compared to the beasts that perish. And so surely as there is a GOD, and as man has an understanding soul, so surely it may be known, ” That for all these things GOD will bring thee to Judgment.” For if there be a GOD, he must be infinitely just; and if so, he must render to every one according to his actions, if not here, then hereafter; and if so, he must bring them to judgment. But he does it not here: the ways of Providence seem to be promiscuous. ” There is a wicked man to whom it happens according to the way of the righteous, and a righteous man to whom it happens according to the way of the wicked.” DIVES receives pleasure, LAZARUS pain; therefore so surely as there is a GOD, there will be a judgment.
Again, If man have an understanding soul, he must have freedom in his actions; and if so, he deserves either good or evil; and if there be desert, there must be retribution; and if there be retribution, there must be a judgment. So then, so surely as you art an understanding creature, so surely there is a judgment to come.
Once more, retribution is answerable to desert; and desert is only in what is free; and what is free in man is ” the ways of his heart.” Wherefore, they are to be brought to judgment: and if any, then all; for no reason can be fancied, why some should be brought to judgment, and others not. Wherefore, if it be sure that GOD is in heaven, and that man has an understanding soul, then it is also sure that for all these things GOD will bring thee to judgment, and that GOD shall bring to judgment every secret thing.
And now how sure and evident are these things!—more sure and more plain, if we will attend to them, than any other truths in the world; for there is not any known truth which does not evince the truth of these things. We know a truth, because we plainly and evidently under-stand the notions in a proposition, or the deduction of a proposition from some others; therefore, if we know any truth, we pre-suppose that we have souls which under-stand the notions of things; and if we have souls which understand these notions, then surely they are not bodies; (no combination of fire, and air, and earth, and water, no disposition of insensible atoms, can cause the subject to apprehend and judge, to reason and discourse;) and if they be no bodies, then they are not subject to corruption. It is evident therefore that our souls are intelligent, and immortal, deserving and capable of future judgment.
And as evident it is, also, that there is a a sovereign power, a GOD that governs and will judge the earth.—This is not a rhetorical undertaking, but a just and measured truth: there is not any thing in the world from whence these two may not be plainly evinced, viz. a GOD-head from the creature, and thine own immortality from a Godhead. The world, which you see’st, had it a beginning, or had it not If it had a beginning, He is thy GOD that made it; if it had no beginning, then there are as many myriads of years as minutes of time, which is infinitely more absurd to grant, than to say, you have as many hands as fingers, as many wholes as parts.
If then at any time we find ourselves to doubt of these things, it is not because we are the beaux esprits, or forts esprits; our doubting proceeds from dullness, and the want of that reason to which we pretend. The things are certain in themselves, and evident. ” He is not far from any one of us, in whom we live, and move, and have our being;” and our immortality was discovered not only to Philosophers, but even to the heathen poets,—to him that sung, ” We are also his offspring.”—So that now thy pretences are all taken off, and every imposture of the heart discovered’—Return then once again into thy bosom, and take account of thy apprehensions. The day of the Lord is coming and stealing upon thee as a thief in the night;—the day of judgment, the great and terrible day; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of whirlwind and tempest, a day of anguish and tribulation. Where wilt you hide thyself O that is impossible! ” Whither shall we go from his presence” Shall we ” call to the mountains to fall upon us” How wilt you appear O that is intolerable, for our GOD is a consuming fire: What wilt you do when the day of judgment comes—and this may be the hour! This minute you may be smitten, and hurried hence to judgment! Thousands have fallen beside us, and ten thousands at our right hand; and why may not we be the next The time of our death cannot be far away; and why may we not reasonably apprehend the approach of the general judgment, either of this world, or at least of this sinful nation Our LoRD indeed tells us, that “of the day and hour” of the final judgment, ” knows no man.” Yet he has given us the signs of his coming. The Apostles have left us characters of the last days; and the Prophets have declared the manner and apparatus of the coming of the LORD to judgment.
We read that when the Disciples admired the stones and the buildings of HEROD’S temple at Jerusalem, CHRIST told them, that the day was coming when there should not be left one stone upon another: upon this the Disciples ask him (privately) three questions: 1. ” When shall these things be” 2. ” What shall be the sign of thy” second ” coming And,” 3. “Of the end of the world”
As for the precise moment of these things, he refuses to tell it them; nay, he professes, that as the Son of Man he did not know it. But on the other two points, he condescends to their curiosity; he tells them the signs of his coming, and of the end of the world, and that they shall besuch as these:–“You shall hear,” says he, (Matt. 24:,) ” of wars and rumors of wars; for nation -shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” There shall be traitors and ” false prophets,” saying, ” Lo! here is CHRIST; behold he (a new MESSIAH) is in the wilderness: Lo! there is CHRIST; behold, he is in the secret chambers.”—He tells us, that ” iniquity shall abound, and the love of many shall wax cold;” that ” he shall hardly find faith on the earth; and that as it was in the days of NOAH, when they were eating and drinking, till the flood came and swept them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.—He tells us, (Luke 21:,) that ” there shall be earthquakes, famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights, great signs from heaven; on the earth distress of nations, with perplexities; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, looking after those things that are coming upon the earth.”
Concerning the last days, ST. PAUL also tells us, that there shall be ” perilous times;” that on one hand there shall be a sort of men, that shall be ” lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, and blasphemers;” and that on the other hand there shall be a race of men ” heady, high-minded, traitors, having a form of Godliness, creeping into houses, leading captive silly women.” They shall ” despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. These,” says S’r. JUDE, ” are they that separate them-selves, sensual, not having the SPIRIT.”—ST. PETER tells us, likewise, that in the last times there should be a loose, profane, bold, atheistical, gigantic race of “scoffers, walking after their own lusts,” saying, ” Where is this GOD of judgment let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it.” ” Where is the promise of his coming Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were before.”
And as to the manner and apparatus of his coming, ” Our GOD shall come,” says the Psalmist, ” and shall not keep silence; there shall go before him a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him.”—” Behold! the LORD will come with fire,” says the Prophet, “and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. The streams of Zion shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone; the land thereof shall be burning pitch; the smoke thereof shall ascend day and night, and shall not be quenched.”—The kings of the earth shall tremble, the captains and the mighty shall be horribly afraid, the great men and the rich men shall hide themselves, all the bond-men and all the free-men shall flee to the rocks of the mountains. And soon after all this, ” the heavens shall be shrivelled as a scroll;” the earth and the elements shall melt away; for GOD shall arise to judge terribly the earth.
Have not all these things come upon us, the men of this generation Is it weakness, is it a vain and superstitious scrupulosity, to call these things to our remembrance Have we no reason at all to apprehend the approach of a general judgment, either upon the world, or upon our sinful nation Do we not now envy those once despised persons who have made their accounts ready We thought it madness to see them pine away with penitential exercises, and macerate themselves with mourning. We thought that fully, which they called conscience, and for which they denied themselves the pleasures of the world. “We fools counted their lives madness, and their latter end to be without honor.” But the time is coming when they shall be “comforted,” and we shall be ” tormented.” ” Because He has called and we have refused, He has stretched out his hand, and we have not regarded, He will laugh at our calamity, and mock when our fear cometh; when our destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon us,”
May we not therefore give up ourselves to our hearts, and surrender our souls unto despair So Israel said; There is no hope, we will follow every one the devices of his heart: “—” After twenty, thirty, or forty years’ continuance in our courses, it is in vain to think of turning from them. Our arrears are gone so far, that there is no hope of discharging them; and why should we trouble our-selves with the thoughts of our account Nay, that which must come, let it come;—what is a few days’ respite to eternity ` Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.’ Let us go forth as at other times, and shake our-selves, and scatter these troublesome apprehensions of future judgment. What if we should drink a little, to drive away melancholy “–Yes! and fall, perhaps, in our intoxication, and rise no more!
Nay, but, I beseech you, stay a little, and consider; consider, ” at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living Goo! Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire Who among us can dwell with ever-lasting burnings ” Such careless and desperate resolutions are the advantages at which the Devil aims, that he may sear our con-sciences, and seal us up in a final obduration. But there is another kind of advantage, at which GOD, and our LORD CHRIST, and the HOLY SPIRIT, and the Gospel, aim,—that advantage of which I told you in the beginning of my discourse; that “knowing the terror of the LORD, they may persuade men.”
And now what is it, to which they would persuade us That we will be contented to part with the tormenting fears of judgment; that we will condescend not to be miserable to all eternity; that we will accept of deliverance from the wrath to come; that we will not neglect so great salvation, nor trample on the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Behold! GOD calls upon us: ” Turn you, turn you at my reproof, why will you die, O house of Israel As I live, says the LORD, I desire not the death of sinners.” Our LORD CHRIST calls upon us: ” Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In the last day of the feast of tabernacles, he “stood and cried, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” ” The SPIRIT says, Come, and whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely.” The Gospel assures us, that ” GOD so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten SON, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life.”
Behold! I ” set before you life and death, blessing, and cursing: ” and, as an unworthy ambassador in CHRIST’S stead, I ” pray you be reconciled to Goo.” Take his “yoke upon you; his yoke is easy, and his burden light:” embrace now the tender of the Gospel; only repent, and believe in the LORD JESUS,—accept him for your SAVIOR and your LORD, your Prophet to instruct you, your King to govern you, your Priest to save you,—and you shall be saved; saved from the fears and horrors of a guilty con-science, condemned by its own witness; saved from the wrath of GOD and of the Lamb. You shall meet the LORD with confidence. We shall be able to stand with boldness in the judgment, to “lift up our heads with joy, because our redemption draweth near.”
This is the way to save our own souls from perishing; which is the general design of all our preaching. And this is the way to appease the wrath which is gone out against us, and to preserve our nation from destruction; which is the particular and more immediate end of our present humiliation, whereof I am yet to speak. The hand of the LORD has indeed been heavy upon us; his wrath has been kindled; it has ” waxed hot against the sheep of his pasture,” and he has plagued our nation very sore: his judgments have been multi-plied; his strokes have been redoubled; and for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.”
Wars and pestilences, and other forerunners of CHRIST’S coming to judgment, have been seen and felt amongst us: And now when these have not been able to prevail with us, to awaken a drowsy people, to rouse up a lethargic nation, and to ferment a people settled upon their lees, GOD has made a new thing in the midst of us; he has wrought a work in our days, which makes the ears of all that hear it to tingle,—a work not to be paralleled, perhaps, in all the circumstances, since the creation of the world.
” How has the LORD covered the daughter of our Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of anger He has swallowed up the habitation of his people; he has taken away his tabernacles, and destroyed his places of assemblies; the ramparts and the walls lament and languish; her gates are sunk to the ground, her bars are destroyed.”
Who can express the terror of this judgment,—the unexpected eruption, the sudden increase, the irresistible force, the remorseless rage, the insatiable voracity of this fiery judgment The present sufferings and the lasting miseries of private persons are inexpressible; the public damage, and the dangerous consequences, it may be, are inconceivable.
What thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of my people Whereunto shall I compare the day of thy visitation To the destruction of Jerusalem, or to the great and terrible day of judgment O the terrors and affrights, the shrieks and lamentations, the agonies and confusions, of that day! They that were on the house-top durst not stay to take any thing out of their houses, nor he that was in the field return back to take his clothes; they that were in the city betook themselves to the fields and mountains, where they beheld their flaming habitations, and trembled to behold the abomination of desolation raging in the holy places.
How were the wise men amazed, and the strong men terrified Despair seized them; counsel and strength fled away from them; there was no help in them; they presently gave up all for lost; they stood affrighted at a distance, gazing at the dreadful spectacle. Vain they thought it to contend; it looked so like the coming of the SON OF MAN.
The breath of the LORD kindled the fire. ” He rode upon the cherub, he came flying upon the wings of the wind.” He made ” the winds his messengers,” and the ” flames of fire his ministers.” He ” brought the winds out of his treasure,” and (to point the flame directly upon the bulk and body of the city) “through his power he brought in the south-east wind.” ” As a thief in the night,” as ” pains upon a woman in travail,” as ” the lightning that cometh from the east and passes to the west,” so came this flaming judgment; and so shall the coming of the Son of MAN be.—I cannot endure to dilate this argument; sorrow and anguish are in the consideration of it. Animus menzinisse horret, luctuque refugit. Great is the judgment; and there is reason for us to fear that it may be portending and symptomatical.
Yet who can tell but GOD may have mercy upon us, and yet save us from destruction Though our breach be great as the sea, yet it is not irreparable;’ though our wounds be deep and gaping, they are not desperate or incurable. Hitherto we may say with the Apostle, we are “chastened, but not killed; afflicted, but not in despair.”
The signs and symptoms of an approaching final judgment are not so peremptory, as that we should despair. Col’s final judgments have hitherto been accompanied with signs of mercy; and this is a plain case, that he is not fond of our destruction, and that he had rather that we should live. ” He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” He stands pausing and hesitating, as the did once before, saying, “O Ephraim, how shall I give thee up ” ” How shall I give thee up, O England” What mean else those alternations, and those mixtures and combinations, of wonderful judgments and of wonderful deliverances and mercies, which our ears have heard, and our eyes have seen We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us what wonderful deliverances he wrought in their time of old. We have seen vicissitudes great and prodigious, mixtures and combinations, marvelous in our eyes; horrible destructions, and wonderful restitutions, succeeding one another; raging plagues at home, and signal victories abroad. GOD has filled us with bitterness, and covered us with ashes: but “it is of his mercy that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” If the arm of his justice and severity has been made bare, that it might be seen of all the people, he has not left his mercy without witness. If his judgment has been great and terrible, in that which is consumed, his mercy is wonderful and miraculous in that which is preserved. “Exce.p.t the LORD had left us a remnant,” (and visibly interposed to do it,) we should not have had this place wherein we are to humble ourselves before him: “we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.” It was He who in ” the midst of judgment remembered mercy.” When the flaming vengeance was at its height; when, in the opinion of all men, it had arrived at the state of irresistibility; when every man’s heart failed him, and the hopes of all men were sunk into despair; He checked the domineering vengeance, He put up the flaming sword, He controlled the streaming waves of fire, and said, ” Thus far shall ye come, and no farther.” In a wonderful manner he preserved the goods and persons of the poor inhabitants of the city. He restrained the rage of our enemies, that cried concerning our Jerusalem, “Down with it, down with it. Aha! so would we have it.” He suffered not a foreign enemy to land, nor our domestic foes to make head in our confusions. He was a wall of fire about the persons of our gracious Sovereign, and his Royal Highness, and of those noble persons who adventured boldly and strenuously, and indefatigably labored, for the public preservation. He has given signal preservations and victories to our fleets abroad. He has restored our generals, and our fleet, in health and safety. He has given us plenty of all things necessary for the life of man. In one great word,—to sum up great and various mercies,—he has upheld our religion and government in peace; and for an earnest of his further preservation, he has given us this seasonable opportunity, with health and safety, in this place to attend the public service, in order to advise and assist in this arduous juncture of affairs.—Arduous and difficult indeed it is, to restore our city, and defend our country; to restore the houses of God, and public buildings; to re-edify ten thousand private habitations; to sustain the poor and needy; to preserve the rights and properties of men; to find such a temper of justice and equity, ” that there be no decay, no just complaining in our streets;” to uphold the traffic of the nation, and to keep it in order and security, free from private robberies and public insurrections; and, in order to all these ends, to uphold our religion in zealous and effectual exercise, as well as to make provision against our dangerous and cruel enemies, ” Gebal, and Amnion, and Amalek,” the French, the Dutch, and the Danes, who have conspired for our destruction.
These things are arduous, but not insuperable; difficult, but not to be despaired of. Concerning Jerusalem, burned and laid waste by the Assyrians, DANIEL foretold that the ” streets and the walls thereof should be rebuilt even in troublous times;” and when the time came that they were re-edified, we read in Nehenaiali, that the laborers in one hand held the trowel, and in the other held a weapon; one half of the people labored in the work, and the other half held the spears and the shields, because of their cruel enemies on every side.
If GOD shall be pleased to give us a spirit of under-standing, and “teach our senators wisdom;” if he shall pour out a public spirit upon our councils, a spirit of tenderness and compassion, of justice and equity, temperance and frugality, fortitude and magnanimity; if all orders and degrees amongst us, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, shall take to themselves the spirits of Christians and of men; if our councils and endeavors shall be answerable to the benignity, to the fervor, and strenuous industry of our gracious Sovereign, and to the alacrity and magnanimity of our courageous and generous countrymen;—then, (speaking humanly, and abstracting from our deservings,) we need not greatly fear, but we may yet subdue the pride and insolence of our barbarous enemies, and may yet behold our city rising out of its ashes, in greater splendor than we have seen it hereto-fore. Wherefore arise, and gird yourselves, O ye princes, ye nobles, ye rulers of our Israel! Consult, consider, and give sentence. ” Men, brethren, and fathers,” let us arise and labor; let us up and be doing. “Be strong and of good courage,” and the good hand of our GOD shall be upon you; he shall give you the honor to be defenders of your country; he shall make you “repairers of the breaches, restorers of our city to dwell in.”
Yet I cannot, I may not, forbear to put you in remembrance of this one thing; “Except the LORD build the city, their labor is but lost that build it.” It is not our wisdom or industry, much less our confidence, that will do it, unless Gm) be for us; neither will GOD be for us, unless we turn from the evil of our ways. Except we repent, we have reason to fear, that what we have seen hitherto, will be no more than the beginning of our sorrows. The Prophet ISAIAH tells us, that “the LORD sent a word into JACOB, and it lighted upon Israel: and all the people shall know, that say, in the pride of their hearts, The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. Therefore the LORD shall set up their adversaries, and join their enemies together, the Syrians before, and the Philistines behind, and they shall devour Israel with open mouth; because this people turneth not to him that smiteth them.”—” Wherefore turn you, turn you every one from the evil of his ways. Let us search our hearts, and try our ways, and turn to Him that has smitten us;—turn unto Him with all our hearts,with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. He has smitten us, and He will heal us, because his corn-passions fail not. “—”Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”
There is yet a way open to take away the terror of our particular judgment, and to prevent a final judgment from falling upon the nation. We are yet in the land of hope, and space is given for repentance; the door of mercy is not yet shut upon us, nor the cars of our judge sealed against us.
“O that men would therefore praise the LORD for his goodness, and declare the wonders that he has done for the children of men! He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities;” he has not cut us off in the midst of our sins, nor in the height of our impenitencies snatched us away to judgment; he has not dealt with us as with the apostate angels, and with thousands of our brethren, who were better and more righteous than we.
Let us once more then return into ourselves. Let us consider our condition; let us look over and balance the grounds of our hopes, and the reasons of our fears. Let us take an exact account of our whole estate and interest, in reference to all our concernments, national and personal, temporal and eternal. Let us deliberate and advise what is to be done, and what is to be avoided. Did I say deliberate—Whether we shall save our souls from utter darkness and everlasting burning Whether we shall save the nation from final ruin and desolation—Nay, rather, let us “break off our sins by repentance, and our iniquities by showing mercy to the poor.” Let us make ourselves ” friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ” we ” fail,” we ” may be received into ever-lasting habitations.” Let us ” lend unto the Lord,” that, we may have ” treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust does corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal.” Let us fast ” the fast that the Lord has chosen; and loose the bands of wickedness; feed the hungry; ” clothe the naked.” “He that has two coats, let him give to him that had’ none; and he that has meat let him do likewise.”
Such an occasion scarcely happens in many hundreds of years; and as to motives to charity, they are all corn-prized in the great argument of the judgment to come.—When the Son of Man shall come to judgment, ” and shall sit upon the throne of his glory;” when ” all nations shall be gathered before him,” and he ” shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left;” this shall be the mark of their discrimination. He shall ” say to those on his right hand, I was hungry, and ye fed me; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me; sick and in prison, and ye visited me; come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you.” And he ” shall say unto them on the left hand, I was hungry, and ye fed me not; thirsty, and ye gave me no drink;” wherefore “go ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels.”
The way is short and compendious to save all our interests. ” What does the LORD require of us but to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our GOD P” Let us be merciful therefore as our heavenly Father is merciful, and let us humble ourselves under the Almighty hand of GOD,” as we pretend to do this day. Let us betake ourselves afore-hand to our Judge, and pour out our complaints before him. Let us confess our wickedness, and be sorry for our sins. Let us lay hold on the feet of our blessed Redeemer, and give him no rest till he has sealed our pardon. Let us hase with our tears the wounds we have made. Let us cry mightily to the throne of grace. Let us wrestle and strive with our Redeemer, and not let Him go until He bless us; until he open our eyes to see the dangers we are in, and through his mercy show us a way to escape them; until he quicken us to resolutions of amendment, and carry us strongly through these resolutions; until he heal our backslidings, and make up our breaches; until he save our souls from death, and our nation from destruction!
To fix us in these resolutions, and to make them abide upon us all our days, let us remember what has been spoken; and let us frequently meditate upon that sarcastical concession of the text; ” Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the clays of thy youth; and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know You, that for all these things GOD will bring thee into judgment.”
WesleyGospel Ministries 