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in, with the graces of God's Spirit! this would at length make them admirable and everlasting beauties. Thou must indeed, O believer grapple with death, and shalt get the first fall; but thou shalt rise again, and come off victorious at last. Thou must go down to the grave, but though it be thy long home, it will not be thine everlasting home. Thou wilt not hear the voice of thy friends there, but thou shalt hear the voice of Christ there Thou mayest be carried thither with mourning, but shalt come up from it rejoicing. Thy friends indeed will leave thee there, but thy God will not. What God said to Jacob concerning his going down to Egypt, (Gen. xlvi. 3, 4.) he says to thee, anent thy going down to the grave, "Fear not to go down-I will go down with thee, and I will surely bring thee up again." O solid comfort! O glorious hope! Wherefore, comfort yourselves, and one another with these words, 1 Thes. iv. 18.

USE II. Of terror to all unregenerate men. Ye who are yet in your natural state, look at this piece of the eternal state; and consider what will be your part in it, if ye be not in time brought into the state of grace. Think, O sinner on that day, when the trumpet shall sound; at the voice of which, the bars of the pit shall be broken asunder, the doors of the grave shall fly open, the devouring depths of the sea shall throw up their dead, the earth cast forth hers, and death every where, in the excess of astonishment, shall let go its prisoners; and thy wretched soul and body shall be re-united, to be sisted before the tribunal of God. Then if thou hadstathousand worlds at thy disposal, thou wouldst gladly give them all away, upon condition thou mightest lie. still in thy grave, with the hundredth part of that ease, wherewith thou hast sometimes lain at home, on the Lord's day; or (if that cannot be obtained) that thou mightest be but a spectator of the transactions of that day, as thou hast been at some solemn occasions, and rich gospel-feasts; or (if even that is not to be purchased) that a mountain or a rock might fall on thee, and cover thee from the face of the Lamb. Ah! how are men bewitched, thus to trifle away the precious time of life, in (almost) as little concern about death, as if they were like the beasts that perish! some will be telling where their corpse must be laid, while yet they have not seriously considered, whether their graves shall be

their beds, where they shall awake with joy in the morning of the resurrection; or their prisons, out of which they shall be brought to receive the fearful sentence. Remember now is your seed-time, and as ye sow, ye shall reap. God's seed-time begins at death; and at the resurrection, the bodies of the wicked, that were full of sins, that lie down with them in the dust, Job xx. 11. shall spring up again, sinful, wretched, and vile. Your bodies, which are now instruments of sin, the Lord will lay aside for the fire at death, and bring them for the fire at the resurrec tion. That body, which is not now employed in God's service, but is abused by uncleanness and lascivious. ness, will then be brought forth in all its vileness, thenceforth to lodge with unclean spirits. The body of the drunkard shall then stagger by reason of the wine of the wrath of God, poured out to him, and poured into him without mixture. These who now please themselves in their revellings, will reel to and fro at another rate; when instead of their songs and music, they shall hear the sound of the last trumpet. Many toil their bodies for worldly gain, who will be loth to distress them for the benefit of their souls; by labour unreasonably hard, they will quite disfit themselves for the service of God; and when they have done, will reckon it a very good reason for shifting duty, that they are already tired out with other business; but the day cometh, when they will be made to abide a yet greater stress. They will go several miles for back and belly, who will not go half the way for the good of their immortal souls; they will be sickly and unable on the Lord's day, who will be tolerably well all the rest of the week. But when that trumpet sounds, the dead shall find their feet, and none shall be missing in that great congregation. When the bodies of the saints shine as the sun, fearful will the looks of their persecutors be. Fearful will their condition be, who sometimes shut up the saints in nasty prisons stigmatized, burned them to ashes, hanged them, and stuck up their heads and hands in public places, to fright others from the ways of righteousness which they suffered for. Many faces now fair, will then gather blackness. They shall be no more admired, caressed for that beauty, which has a worm at the root, that will cause it to issue in lothsomeness and deformity. Ah! what is beauty, under which

here lurks a monstrous, deformed, and graceless heart? What but a sorry paint, a slight varnish; which will leave the body so much the more ugly, before that flaming-fire, in which the Judge shall be revealed from heaven, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel, 2 Thes. i. 7, 8. They shall be stript of all their ornaments, and not have a rag to cover their nakedness; but their carcases shall be an abhorring to all flesh, and serve as a foil to set off the beauty and glory of the righteous, and make it appear the brighter.

Now is the time to secure for yourselves a part in the resurrection of the just. The which if ye would do, unite with Jesus Christ by faith, rising spiritually from sin, and glorifying God with your bodies. He is the resurrection and the life, John xii. 25. If your bodies be members of Christ, temples of the Holy Ghost, they shall certainly arise in glory. Get into this ark now, and ye shall come forth with joy into the new world. Rise from your sins; cast away these grave clothes, putting off your formerlusts, How can one imagine, that these who continue dead while they live, shall come forth at the last day, unto the resurrection of life? But that will be the privilege of all those, who having first consecrated their souls and bodies to the Lord by faith, do glorify him with their bodies, as well as their souls; living and acting to him, and for him, yea, and suffering for him too, when he calls them to it.

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THE GENERAL JUDGMENT.

MAT. XXV. 31, 32, 33, 34, 41, 46.

When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.

And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another; as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed, &c.

Unto them on the left hand, Depart from me ye cursed, &c.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment : But the righteous into life eternal.

THE

dead being raised, and these found alive at the coming of the Judge, changed, follows the general judgment, plainly and awfully described in this portion of scripture; in which we shall take notice of the following particulars. (1.) The coming of the Judge, When the Son of man shall come in his glory, &c. The Judge is Jesus Christ, the Son of man; the same, by whose almighty power, as he is God, the dead will be raised. He is also called the King, ver. 34. The judging of the world being an act of the Royal Mediator's kingly office. He will come in glory; glorious in his own Person, and having a glorious retinue, even all the holy angels with him, to minister unto him at this great solemnity. (2.) The Judge's

mounting the tribunal. He is a King, and therefore it is a throne, a glorious throne, He shall sit upon the throne of his glory, ver.31. (3.) The compearance of the parties. These are all nations; all and every one small and great, of whatsoever nation, who ever were, are, or shall be on the face of the earth; all shall be gathered before him; sisted before his tribunal. (4.) The sorting of them. He shall separate the elect sheep and reprobate goats, setting each party by themselves; as a shepherd who feeds his sheep and goats together all the day, separates them at night, ver. 32. The godly he will set on his right hand, as the most honourable place; the wicked on the left, ver. 33. Yet so as they shall be both before him, ver. 32. It seems to be an allusion to a custom in the Jewish courts, in which, one sat at the right hand of the judge, who wrote the sentence of absolution; another at their left, who wrote the sentence of condemnation. (5.) The sentencing of the parties, and that according to their works; the righteous being absolved, and the wicked condemned, ver. 34, 41. Lastly, The execution of both sentences, in the driving away of the wicked into hell, and carrying the godly into heaven, ver. 46.

DOCTRINE.

There shall be a general Judgment.

This Doctrine I shall, (1.) confirm, (2.) explain, and (3.) apply.

I. For confirmation of this great truth, that there shall be a general judgment.

15.

First, It is evident from plain scripture-testimonies. The world has in all its ages been told of it. Enoch before the flood taught it in his prophecy, related, Jude 14, "Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all," &c. Daniel describes it, chap. vii. 9, 10. "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands stood before Rim; the judgment was set, and the books were opened."

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