day when he will come to judge the world in righteousness. And this matchless and marvellous brightness we may presume to be that which he himself calls 'the sign of the Son of Man.'

(2.) When our Lord comes, the whole frame of nature will suffer the most fearful convulsions, and at last be rolled up in an universal flame, Psal. l. 3. Dan. vii. 9, 10. When once this mighty flame breaks out, it will burn with the keenest fury, and lay the earth, with all its works, in heaps of ruinous rubbish, 2. Pet. iii. 10.

8. At his coming he will be attended with a splendid retinue of ten thousand times ten thousand glorious angels. The flaming seraphims, those mighty ministers of his who fulfil all his pleasure, shall in a magnificent body form a majestic cavalcade, when the Prince of the kings of the earth comes to judgment, Matth. xvi. 27. 2 Thess. i. 7. Dan vii. 10.

4. When he comes, he will sit upon a throne high and lifted up; and before him shall the general assembly of men and devils, be solemnly sisted, Matth. xxv. 31, 32. Rev. xx. 11, 12.

Secondly, I come now to speak of the Judge. And this is the Lord Jesus Christ. For, (says the apostle) we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ,' 2 Cor. v. 10. Now, he is ordained Judge of the world.

1. Because this Judgment is to be acted visibly. Men are to be judged, and the whole process with them will be for things done in the body. Now God is invisible in his nature, and therefore hath most wisely ordained the last judgment of the world to be transacted by a visible person. The Son of God will appear in his human nature, seated on a visible throne, that he may be seen and heard of all.

2. Because Christ is only qualified for this office. (1.) On account of the great dignity and excellency of his person, being Godman. No mere creature is capable of so high a trust, and such a glorious commission. To pass a sovereign sentence upon angels and men, is a royalty reserved for the Son of God alone, (2.) On account of the immense difficulty of this, work. No mere creature is able to discharge it. If a select number of the holy angels of the highest order were deputed for this purpose, they could not manage the judicial trial of one man. For, besides the innumerable acts and omissions in one life, the secret springs of the heart, from whence the guilt or goodness of moral actions is derived, are not open to them. It is he alone who discerns all things that can require an account of all.

3. He is constituted Judge of the world, as a reward of his death and bloody sufferings. So the apostle declares, Phil. ii. 8, 9, 10.

His victorious sufferings are the titles to his triumphs. His being so ignominiously condemned by men, is the just reason of his advancement to this dignity and glory. This will for ever roll away the ignominy of his cross.

Thirdly, Who are they that shall be judged? All must appear before Christ's tribunal. Men of all conditions in the church, apostles and private Christians, ministers and people, old and young, the good and the bad, believers and unbelievers, the just and the unjust, Jews and Gentiles, bond and free. Men of all conditions in the world must stand before Christ's bar, high and low, rich and poor, noble and ignoble, princes and peasants. No rank, degree, or quality, can exempt men from this appearance. All the distinctions which are among men here cease at the grave's mouth. All stand there on the same level, and are of the same mould. In a word, all the apostate angels and the universal progeny of Adam, shall appear before Christ at that day.

Fourthly, What are the things about which men shall be judged? We learn from 2 Cor. v. 10. that they are the things done in the body.' And they are these three, works, words, and thoughts.

1. All men's works will come unto judgment, whether they be good or bad, Eccl. xii. 14. God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.' All their good works will then be tried, as acts of piety towards God, and acts of righteousness and charity towards men, with respect to their principle, motives, and end. All men's evil works will be tried in judgment, both open and secret. Many dig deep now to hide their counsels from the Lord, and carry their wickedness under a vail of darkness, and care not what they do, provided they do it undiscerned. There are many abominations committed in men's lives, which the eyes of the world cannot penetrate into; and there are innumerable evils lurking in their hearts, which no tongue can disclose. But at the last day all those things will be brought to light, such as midnight revels, secret murders, fraudulent dealings, and hidden hypocrisies.

2. All men's words shall be tried in judgment. God gave not the power and organ of speech to man, which is his glory and excellency above the beasts, to serve a sinful passion or corrupt humour, or to vent the froth and vanity of his own spirit, but to extol and magnify his Creator, and render him the praise of all his glorious and admirable works. Christians should employ their tongues for the honour of God, and the edification of one another. But O how wofully is this noble faculty abused by many, in cursing and swearing, lying, slandering, and detracting, and by belching forth

obscene and scurrilous speeches! The lips of many drop nothing but gall and poison, to infect and corrupt others. Now, all this must come into judgment. Our Saviour tells us, that every idle word that a man speaks, he shall give account of it in the day of judgment.

3. All men's thoughts will be tried in judgment. For Christ will 'make manifest the counsels of the heart,' 1 Cor. iv. 5. Many think now that thoughts go free; but it is not so in God's account. He knows all men's thoughts, and records them in the book of his remembrance, and at the last day they will be manifested and revealed. O what an infinite variety of thoughts is in every man's mind? This thinking faculty is never idle, but is always putting forth whole shoals of thoughts. Men have many atheistical and blasphemous thoughts, many murdering and revengeful thoughts, covetous and ambitious thoughts, unchaste and impure thoughts, vain, empty, and unprofitable thoughts, and many bold presumptuous thoughts. Now, all these must come into judgment.

Fifthly, What are the properties of this judgment?

1. It will be an universal judgment. Those that lived under the Jaw, and those that lived under the gospel, and those that having no law were a law unto themselves, Rom. ii. 12. those that had many talents, and they that had but one, must all appear at Christ's bar. Those that were carried from the cradle to the grave, and those that stooped for age, the father and the child, the master and the servant, in a word, the whole offspring of Adam, will be judged at that day. The bowels of the earth, the bottom of the sea, and all the elements, shall give up their dead; and all the apostate angels shall then appear and receive their final doom.

2. It will be an awful judgment. It is called in Scripture' the judgment of the great day.' The immediate antecedents of Christ's appearing will make it very terrible. There will be a dreadful catastrophe of the world, which will fill men's hearts with horror and fear; the bands and ligaments of nature will then be broken asunder, and her present frame and constitution dissolved; the elements shall be reduced into their primitive confusion: the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken, Matt. xxiv. 29. There will be a strange convulsion of nature at the coming of the Lord. All the stately palaces and magnificent buildings which men doat so much upon now, will then be reduced to ashes. Again, the manner of his coming will be awful and solemn: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ

shall rise first then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord,' 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17. This will be such a shout as armies were wont to make when the signal of battle was given; and after this shout the trump of God shall sound. By this tremendous blast sinners shall be affrighted out of their graves; but to the saints it will carry no more terror than the roaring of Cannons, when armies of friends approach a besieged city for the relief of those that are within it. And the dead being raised, they shall be gathered together before the great and awful throne on which Christ shall sit in his glory, and there they shall be exactly divided by the angels into two companies, one on the Judge's right-hand, and the other on his left. Here will be the greatest assembly that ever met; where Adam may see his numerous offspring, even as the sand upon the sea-shore, which no man can number.

3. This judgment will be exact and critical. It is the Searcher of the heart, to whom all secrets are known, that will pass this final sentence upon men. Big eyes are as a flame of fire, and can penetrate into the centre of the soul. All sins, whether secret or open, shall be accounted for at that day; and the sins of men's thoughts and affections, which Satan could not accuse them of, shall then be brought into judgment. For in that day 'God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ,' Rom. ii. 16. All men's sins of omission, and their woful neglect of improving the means, advantages, and opportunities for doing or receiving good, shall be accounted for at that day. All acts of commission in youth and age, whether gross sensuality, as licentiousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries, and all excess of riot, shall be accounted for to him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead, 1 Pet. iv. 4, 5. And all acts of unrighteousness to men, yea, and sins of lesser guilt, for which the most part of men are not touched either with grief or shame while here, shall then be produced in judgment. And all the sins of men's words, which are so easily committed, but not so easily observed, shall be called to a heavy remembrance. This will be a day that will perfectly fan the world. Justice will then hold the balance in an even hand; Christ will go to work so exactly, that some divines have thought, that the day of judgment will last as long as the day of the gospel's administration hath done or shall do.

4. It will be a righteous judgment; He will judge the world in righteousness,' Acts xvii. 31. His knowledge of all men's characters and actions is infallibly true, and therefore his sentence upon

them will be incontestibly just, consistent with all the rules of the highest equity and justice. And the sentence he shall pass upon both saints and sinners, shall be universally applauded at that day.

5. Lastly, It is a final judgment, from which there can lie no appeal. Here in the world, if men judge themselves wronged in one court, they can appeal to another. But it is not so here: for this is the supreme tribunal, where the great Sovereign of heaven and earth will give judgment upon angels and men: and the sentence once passed, will immediately be put in execution, Matth. xxv. 46. Just after the sentence is pronounced by Christ, it is immediately added, 'These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.' The sentence shall be irrevocable, and can never be repealed. It will determine the eternal state of all, and transmit them either to everlasting happiness or misery.

Sixthly, What are the final causes or ends of this judgment? 1. The glory of the justice and mercy of God; the former in punishing the wicked, and the latter in rewarding his friends. Many eminent displays of these attributes have been exhibited in the world, but the largest and fullest manifestation of them will be given at the last day, when the righteous judge shall take vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power,' 2 Thess. i. 8, 9. And then he shall say unto the righteous, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, Matth. xxv. 34.

2. The glory of the Lord Jesus, which will be highly manifested at that day. His first coming was obscure and without observation. For he came in the form of a servant, and was reproached and reviled by men. But then he will come in power and great glory, as the Lord and Heir of all things. At his first coming he vailed his divinity with the infirmities of flesh. But then the rays of his incomprehensible glory shall dazzle the eyes of all that behold him.— When he came first to the world, he stood before the tribunals of men, and was condemned to the cursed death of the cross; but then he will sit upon a glorious throne, and all the princes and potentates in the world shall stand trembling before him, expecting a sentence from his mouth, upon which their eternal destiny will depend. He is now seated at the right-hand of the Majesty on high; but the curtains of the heavens conceal his glory from us; and therefore there is a time fixed, when in the sight of the whole world he will manifest his glory.

3. The rewarding of men according to their works, and thereby