the sinner appear?" (1 Pet. iv. 18.) What wilt thou feel at that hour, when thou hast left this life and art entering alone, poor and naked, into that Divine Judgment, with no advocate but thy works, no companion but thine own conscience? And this before so strict a tribunal, and where the question is not of losing temporal life, but of everlasting life or death. And if in the reckoning of that day thou hast not wherewithal to pay, what will be the terror of thy heart! How confounded wilt thou be! How repentant! Great was the terror of the princes of Judah when they saw the victorious sword of Shishak, King of Egypt, fly through the streets of Jerusalem, (1 Kings xiv. 25, 26), when by the pain of present punishment they knew the guilt of their past offences. (2 Chron. xii. 6.) But what is this compared with the shame and terror that the wicked will feel now. What shall they do? Whither shall they go? How shall they defend themselves? Tears avail not now; repentance profits not now; prayers are heard no more; promises are no more accepted; time for repentance no longer given, for the last instant of life is ended, and there is no more time for repentance. Riches, family, favour of the world, far less will they avail; for, as the Wise Man says, "Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death." (Prov. xi. 4.) When the wretched soul sees itself surrounded by such misery, what can it do but say with the prophet, "The snares of death compassed me round about, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me." (Ps. cxvi. 3.) Miserable that I am, how straitly am I now besieged by my sin! How has this hour come upon me suddenly like a thief! How unthought of has it arrived! What avail me now all my past honours and dignities! What do my friends and servants profit me! What all the wealth and riches that I possessed! For now I must content myself with seven feet of earth, and with a linen shroud. And what is worse, the riches will remain here to be squandered by others, and the sins that I committed in gaining them wrongfully, will go with me beyond the grave, where I must pay for them. What avail me now all my past pleasures and delights, for the pleasures are ended, and there remains only the dregs, the scruples and remorse of conscience, the thorns that pierce my heart, and that will torture it for ever.

Why did I not prepare for this hour! How often was I warned and would not hear! "How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." (Prov. v. 12-14.)

Such will be the affliction, the anxiety, the considerations of the wicked at this hour. That thou mayest not come to such distress, my Brother, I beseech thee, of all that I have now said to consider and fix three points in thy memory. First, consider how great will be the pain thou must endure at the hour of death for all the offences thou hast committed against GOD. Secondly, how greatly thou wilt then desire to have loved and served Him, so that He might be favourable to thee now. Thirdly, what manner of repentance thou wouldst then desire to practise, if time were given thee. So mayest thou strive to live now as thou wouldst then desire to have lived.

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CHAPTER VIII.

Of the Eighth Clause that constrains us to Virtue, which is the Second of the Four Last Things, namely, the Last Fudgment.

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FTER death follows the particular judgment of each individual, and after this, the general judgment of all, when the Apostle's words will be fulfilled, “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of CHRIST; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it bé good or bad." (2 Cor. v. 10.) And because I have treated of that judgment, and of the signs that are to precede it, in the Memorial of a Christian Life, I will now speak only of the strictness of the account required in it, and of that which will follow after, to show thee how greatly thou art bound to virtue.

The first is so remarkable, that one of the things at which holy Job most marvelled, was that man being so trifling and so illinclined a creature, GOD, Who is so great, should be so severe towards him, that there is no word, no thought, no unregulated emotion but He writes it in His Book, and will demand an exact account of it. And thus he speaks at length, saying, "Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and holdest me for Thine enemy? Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt Thou pursue the dry stubble? For Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, (fettering my appetite with the law of Thy commandments) and lookest narrowly into all my paths; Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet. And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth-eaten.

(Job xiii. 24-28.) And continuing the same subject, he adds immediately after, "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with Thee? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." (Job xiv. 1-4.) All these words holy Job spake, greatly marvelling at the severity of the Divine justice towards a creature so frail, so evil-inclined, and who so easily drinketh iniquity like water. For if this rigour had been towards the Angels, who are spiritual and very perfect creatures, it would not have been so marvellous; but for man, whose evil inclinations are innumerable, that the account of his life should be so exact, that not one idle word, or one instant of ill-spent time shall be passed over, this is a thing that surpasses all astonishment. Who but must be terrified by the SAVIOUR's words, "I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (S. Matt. xii. 36.) Now, if an account will be required of these words which do no one any harm, how will it be as to unclean words, and filthy thoughts, and bloody hands, and adulterous eyes, and a whole life spent in evil? And if this be true, as it is, what can we say of the strictness of this judgment, that is not less than the fact? How overwhelmed will a man be when, in the presence of so great an assembly, a little word that he spoke one day thoughtlessly is laid to his charge! Who but must be amazed at such a demand as this? Or who would dare say this, unless GOD had said it? Did any king ever ask account of one of his servants of the point of a needle? O exalted Christian religion, how great is the purity that thou commandest, how strict the account that thou requirest, how severe the judgment that thou passest!

And how great will be the shame of the wicked, when all the evil deeds that were hidden within the walls of their houses, all their unclean doings from their earliest years, all the corners and hidden things of their consciences, shall be published openly before the whole world! Whose conscience will be so pure that he will not now begin to change colour, and to dread this

shame! For if it be so shameful a thing to tell one's sins to a confessor in the secrecy of the confessional that some men hide and conceal them, what will be the shame in the presence of GOD, and of all ages present, past, and to come? So great will be this shame that the Prophet tells us, "They shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us." (Hosea x. 8.) Swallow us up in the deep that we may no more appear in such great shame and confusion.

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And what will it be beyond all this to await the thunderstroke of the final sentence, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (S. Matt. xxv. 41.) What will the reprobate feel at these words? "How little a portion is heard of Him?" saith holy Job, "but the thunder of His power who can withstand?" (Job xxvi. 14, Vulg.) So terrible, so powerful will this word be, that the earth will open, and they will in a moment go down to the abyss, who, as Job again says, take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ," and who "spend their days in wealth." (Job xxi. 12, 13.) S. John speaks thus of their fall in the Apocalypse: "I saw another Angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." (Rev. xviii. 1, 2.) And the holy Evangelist adds and says that the Angel "took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." (Rev. xviii. 21.) In this manner, then, shall the wicked fall down that precipice, into that dungeon of darkness and confusion, which is here meant by Babylon.

But what tongue can express the multitude of pains that will be suffered there! There their bodies will burn with living fire that shall never be quenched. There their souls will be consumed and tortured with the gnawing worm of conscience that will never die or cease. (Isa. lxvi. 24; S. Mark ix. 43, 46, 48; Ecclus. vii. 17.) There will be the perpetual weeping and gnashing of teeth, of which Holy Scripture so often warns us.