sincerity of their souls, and their scruples by their zeal, and their passions by their love, and all by the mercies of God and the sacrifice which their Judge offered, and the Holy Spirit made effective by daily graces and assistances. These, therefore, infallibly go to the portion of the right hand, be"But as for cause the Lord our God shall answer for them. the wicked, it is not so with them;" for although the plain story of their life be to them a sad condemnation, yet what will be answered when it shall be told concerning them, that they despised God's mercies, and feared not his angry judgments; that they regarded not his word, and loved not his excellences; that they were not persuaded by his promises, nor affrighted by his threatenings; that they neither would accept his government nor his blessings; that all the sad stories that ever happened in both the worlds (in all which himself did escape till the day of his death, and was not concerned in them, save only that he was called upon by every one of them, which he ever heard, or saw, or was told of, to repentance, that all these) were sent to him in vain ? But cannot the accuser truly say to the Judge concerning such persons, 'They were thine by creation, but mine by their own choice; thou didst redeem them indeed, but they sold themselves to me for a trifle, or for an unsatisfying interest: thou diedst for them, but they obeyed my commandments: I gave them nothing, I promised them nothing but the filthy pleasure of a night, or the joys of madness, or the delights of a disease: I never hanged upon the cross three long hours for them, nor endured the labours of a poor life thirtythree years together for their interest: only when they were thine by the merit of thy death, they quickly became mine by the demerit of their ingratitude; and when thou hadst clothed their soul with thy robe, and adorned them by thy graces, we stripped them naked as their shame, and only put on a robe of darkness, and they thought themselves secure and went dancing to their grave, like a drunkard to a fight, or a fly unto a candle; and, therefore, they that did partake with us in our faults, must divide with us in our portion and fearful interest?' This is a sad story, because it ends in death, and there is nothing to abate or lessen the calamity. It concerns us, therefore, to consider in time, that he that tempts us, will accuse us, and what he calls plea VOL. J. sant now, he shall then say was nothing, and all the gains that now invite earthly souls and mean persons to vanity, were nothing but the seeds of folly, and the harvest is pain, and sorrow, and shame eternal. But then, since this horror proceeds upon the account of so many accusers, God hath put it into our power, by a timely accusation of ourselves in the tribunal of the court Christian, to prevent all the arts of aggravation, which, at doomsday, shall load foolish and undiscerning souls. He that accuses himself of his crimes here, means to forsake them, and looks upon them on all sides, and spies out his deformity, and is taught to hate them, he is instructed and prayed for, he prevents the anger of God, and defeats the devil's malice; and, by making shame the instrument of repentance, he takes away the sting, and makes that to be his medicine, which otherwise would be his death. And concerning this exercise, I shall only add what the patriarch of Alexandria told an old religious person in his hermitage. Having asked him what he found in that desert, he was answered only this, "Indesinenter culpare et judicare meipsum ;-to judge and condemn myself perpetually, that is the employment of my solitude."-The patriarch answered, "Non est alia via; There is no other way."— By accusing ourselves we shall make the devil's malice useless, and our own consciences clear, and be reconciled to the Judge by the severities of an early repentance, and then we need to fear no accusers. SERMON III. PART III. 3. It remains that we consider the sentence itself, "We must receive according to what we have done in the body, whether it be good or bad." "Judicaturo Domino lugubre mundus immugiet, et tribus ad tribum pectora ferient. Potentissimi quondam reges nudo latere palpitabunt:" so St. Jerome meditates concerning the terror of this consideration; "The whole world shall groan when the Judge comes to give his sentence, tribe and tribe shall knock their sides together; and through the naked breasts of the most mighty kings, you shall see their hearts beat with fearful tremblings."--"Tunc Aristotelis argumenta parum proderunt, cum venerit filius pauperculæ quæstuariæ judicare orbem terræ." Nothing shall then be worth owning, or the means of obtaining mercy, but a holy conscience; "all the human craft and trifling subtilties shall be useless, when the son of a poor maid shall sit Judge over all the world." When the prophet Joel was describing the formidable accidents in the day of the Lord's judgment, and the fearful sentence of an angry Judge, he was not able to express it, but stammered like a child, or an amazed, imperfect person, "A. A. A. diei, quia prope est dies Dominik." It is not sense at first; he was so amazed he knew not what to say; and the Spirit of God was pleased to let that sign remain, like Agamemnon's sorrow for the death of Iphigenia, nothing could describe it but a veil; it must be hidden and supposed; and the stammering tongue, that is full of fear, can best speak that terror, which will make all the world to cry, and shriek, and speak fearful accents, and significations of an infinite sorrow and amazement. But so it is, there are two great days, in which the fate of all the world is transacted. This life is man's day, in which man does what he please, and God holds his peace. Man destroys his brother, and destroys himself, and confounds governments, and raises armies, and tempts to sin, and delights in it, and drinks drunk, and forgets his sorrow, and heaps up great estates, and raises a family, and a name in the annals, and makes others fear him, and introduces new religions, and confounds the old, and changeth articles as his interest requires, and all this while God is silent, save that he is loud and clamorous with his holy precepts, and overrules the event; but leaves the desires of men to their own choice, and their course of life such as they generally choose. But then God shall have his day too; the day of the Lord shall come, in which he shall speak, and no man shall answer; he shall speak in the voice of thunder and fearful noises, and man shall do no more as he please, but must suffer as he hath deserved. When Zedekiah reigned in Jerusalem, and persecuted the prophets, and destroyed the inte k Joel i. rests of religion, and put Jeremy into the dungeon, God held his peace, save only that he warned him of the danger, and told him of the disorder; but it was Zedekiah's day, and he was permitted to his pleasure; but when he was led in chains to Babylon, and his eyes were put out with burning basins and horrible circles of reflected fires, then was God's day, and his voice was the accent of a fearful anger, that broke him all in pieces. It will be all our cases, unless we hear God speak now, and do his work, and serve his interest, and bear ourselves in our just proportions, that is, as such, the very end of whose being and all our faculties is, to serve God, and do justice and charities to our brother. For if we do the work of God in our own day, we shall receive an infinite mercy in the day of the Lord. But what that is, is now to be inquired. "What we have done in the body." But certainly this is the greatest terror of all. The thunders and the fires, the earthquakes and the trumpets, the brightness of holy angels, and the horror of accursed spirits, the voice of the archangel (who is the prince of the heavenly host) and the majesty of the Judge, in whose service all that army stands girt with holiness and obedience, all those strange circumstances which have been already reckoned, and all those others which we cannot understand, are but little preparatories and umbrages of this fearful circumstance. All this amazing majesty and formidable preparatories, are for the passing of an eternal sentence upon us, according to what we have done in the body. Woe and alas! and God help us all. All mankind is an enemy to God, his nature is accursed, and his manners are depraved. It is with the nature of man, and with all his manners, as Philemon said of the nature of foxes. Οὐκ ἔστ ̓ ἀλώπηξ, ἡ μὲν εἴρων τῇ φύσει, "Every fox is crafty and mischievous, and if you gather a whole herd of them, there is not a good-natured beast amongst them all."-So it is with man; by nature he is the child of wrath, and by his manners he is the child of the devil; we call Christian, and we dishonour our Lord; and we are brethren, but we oppress and murder one another; it is a great degree of sanctity now-a-days, not to be so wicked as the worst of men; and we live at the rate, as if the best of men did design to themselves an easier condemnation; and as if the generality of men considered not concerning the degrees of death, but did believe that in hell no man shall perceive any ease or refreshment in being tormented with a slower fire. For consider what we do in the body; twelve or fourteen years pass, before we choose good or bad; and of that which remains, above half is spent in sleep and the needs of nature; for the other half, it is divided as the stag was when the beasts went a hunting, the lion hath five parts of six. The business of the world takes so much of our remaining portion, that religion and the service of God have not much time left that can be spared; and of that which can, if we consider how much is allowed to crafty arts of cozenage, to oppression and ambition, to greedy desires and avaricious. prosecutions, to the vanities of our youth and the proper sins of every age, to the mere idleness of man and doing nothing, to his fantastic imaginations of greatness and pleasures, of great and little devices, of impertinent lawsuits and uncharitable treatings of our brother; it will be intolerable when we consider that we are to stand or fall eternally according to what we have done in the body. Gather it all together, and set it before thine eyes; alms and prayers are the sum of all thy good. Were thy prayers made in fear and holiness, with passion and desire? Were they not made unwillingly, weakly, and wanderingly, and abated with sins in the greatest part of thy life? Didst thou pray with the same affection and labour as thou didst purchase thy estate? Have thine alms been more than thy oppressions, and according to thy power? and by what means didst thou judge concerning it? How much of our time was spent in that? and how much of our estate was spent in this? But let us go one step farther:-How many of us love our enemies? or pray for and do good to them that persecute and affront us? or overcome evil with good, or turn the face again to them that strike us, rather than be revenged? or suffer ourselves to be spoiled or robbed without contention and uncharitable courses? or lose our interest rather than lose our charity? And yet by these precepts we shall be judged. I instance but once more. Our blessed Saviour spake a hard saying: |