Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	account_n	day_n	idle_a	2,166	5	9.1920	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66102	Impenitent sinners warned of their misery and summoned to judgment delivered in two sermons, the former on the Sabbath, Nov. 6, the other on the lecture following, Nov. 10, 1698, occasioned by the amazing instance of a miserable creature who stood condemned for murdering her infant begotten in whoredom : to which are subjoyned the solemn words spoken to her on those opportunities, published for the warning of others / by Samuel Willard.	Willard, Samuel, 1640-1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing W2281; ESTC R30203	31,791	66

for if there be no after reckoning there is then no danger at all But this thought if it be rightly entertained will be a strong curb to sin and a sharp spur to duty inasmuch as it must needs lead mens thoughts forward to such meditations as these There is certainly a future Judgment in which I am personally concerned I am Gods Creature and am placed under the Rule of his special Government and interested in the Sanctions of his Holy Law I am now a probationer for that day and all that I am doing in this world hath a reference unto that and must come under the strict examen of it Every thought of mine heart every word of my mouth and every deed that I do will then be called over and tryed whether it be conformable to or dissonant from the Rule by the which I must be either acquitted or condemned and so exact will that scrutiny be that not so much as one idle word shall escape it Math. 12. 36. Every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of Judgment I am under the watchful eye of an all-seeing God who keeps an exact account of all my thoughts words and deeds and will certainly in that day bring them into open light and set them in order before me For God will bring every work into Judgment with every secret thing Eccl. 12. 14. I must dy ere long and there is no possible avoidance of it and then to the Judgment I must whether I will or no and it will be utterly in vain for me to tire the Rocks and Mountains to hide me from the presence of the great God or secure me from making my appearance before his Judgment seat There will need no witness then to be produced to prove any of the matters that shall be alledged against me since mine own Conscience is an exact register of all things and will be more than a thousand witnesses I am all the time that I am living in this world laying up treasures for eternity and those either of happiness or of misery which shall be righteously distributed to me according as I have been laying in in this time I have a righteous Judge unto whom I must give up my accounts with whom there is no respect of persons and a vain thing it is to hope to bribe him but according as my true state upon the most exact enquiry shall be found so will he take order about me and pass the sentence either of absolution or condemnation upon me Now what a check would such reflections as these are throughly believed and fixedly entertained give to the mad youngster in the midst of all his frolicks and mar all the mirth of his greedy lusts turning it into bitterness God therefore offers such a memento as this is to these Eccl. 11. 9. Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thine heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these things God wi●l bring thee into Judgment Yea how would it put every one of us upon greater wariness to our selves and make a deep impression of that advice upon our hearts Eph. 5. 15. See that you walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time How would it put us upon pondering our way and living by rule and make us afraid of rash precipitant rushing into any action I am sure that Job tells us that he was awed by such a thought a● this and upon it to look well to himself lest at any time he should expose himself to the danger of not being able to hold up his head when he should be called to a r●ckoning Job 3. 1. 14. What then shall I do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him 2. And what an amazing thought must it needs be to them that are at the point of death except they have made their peace with God As for those indeed who have through grace obtained a pardon acceptance unto life through the New-Covenant this thought must needs afford to them all preciousness and desirableness though still the very nature of the thing will carry in it an holy awe on their hearts But as for all others how can they a● such an hour look upon it without horror Truly the uncertainty of death and the certainty of the following Judgment and Reckoning he must then be called to is enough constantly to fill the sinner with consternation for that he hath reason every moment to be afraid of the arrest though careless men put away the thoughts of this on presumption that the vision is for many days to come But when he perceives that he hath but a very few days or hours to stay death now stares him in the face shews him its Warrant and tells him he must be gone there is no hope of a longer reprieve what a tumult will it raise in him and what pungent thoughts must it needs fill him withal can he but reflect and say my working time is now done my day in which I have been laying up for another world is over and I am now ready to pass into an amazing Eternity and what an unconceivable change will it make with me what little hope have I that this Change is like to be unto me for the better and not for the worse I have indeed been hard at work in my little time and pursued my buisiness with great eagerness but what manner of work is it that I have been doing I have been laying up of vast treasures but where is it they are stored I am now going to appear before my Judge my naked soul must in a very little while be brought before his Tribunal and he will certainly recompence me without all partiality according to what I have done in the body whether it be good or evil If the life I have led in this world hath been wicked how can I expect that my latter end should be peace There is an Heaven and an Hell before me one whereof will receive me as soon as I depart but into which of these am I like to pass the Judge will certainly appoint me to one or the other of them Oh! where shall this Immortal Soul of mine lodge when it shall be called out of this mortal body shall be required at mine hands Have I any good reason to think that it shall be received by the blessed Angles and lodged in Abrahams Bosome or rather fall into the hands of rageful Devils and be hurried to endless torments What manner of life is it that I have been leading in the World Which way is it that I have been going Have I chosen that narrow way that leads unto life which there are but a few that find or have I not rejected it and gone in the broad way that leads to destruction

What saith he Psal 76. 7. Thou even thou art to be feared and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry He is an holy God he hates and is resolved signally to testify his displeasure at sin and wo to those that must be made the monuments of that displeasure of his better had it been for them if they had never been born He is a Just God and he will not suffer the righteousness of his Law to fail and if bold sinners will thrust themselves upon the swords point they shall feel the smart of it to their confusion He is a True God and faithful to his threatnings as well as to his promises and if he hath said that the foolish shall not stand in his sight let all impenitent sinners look to themselves for they shall find that the Strength of Israel is not a man that he should ly or a son of man that he should repent 4. Let the consideration of all this make you hastly and in earnest to fly to God for his Spirit and Grace to make you wise This is the right improvement that sinners ought to make of the Terrours of the Lord it should make them afraid of the wrath of God and put them into trembling at the apprehension of their danger and by this fear to be stimulated to an uneasiness and restlessness in their present condition and cause them to cry aloud to God for his pitty and help and by his Holy Spirit to work in them that great Change by which they may be turned from folly to wisdom from darkness to his marvailous light from sin to God And let the dread of such a misery as this separation will certainly produce be a spur to quicken you to make no more delays lest whiles you dispise the mercy offered and trifle away a precious day of Grace which you enjoy you pull down vengeance on your own heads be put beyond hope for ever 5. And to make you the more earnest look on and take warning by every awful monument of Gods dispeasure on this account There are those Judgments of his in the World which he designs to be exemplary for the rousing up of secure sinners and terrifying of them under the apprehension of his Holiness therein displayed When any are left by God to themselves and by their own naughtiness run themselves upon the sword of civil Justice and must be cut off by it God would have all Israel to hear and fear and do no more so presumptuously Such an one we have now in the Providence of God set before us and the Lord give us all the Grace to learn by it and let young ones in a special manner and more peculiarly such as are in their sins and leading a course possibly as vile and abominable as that was which led her into this snare take warning from this and let it be a solemn admonition to you let her History be your Caution lest God be provoked to make you an History too And now let me direct my speech to her but let all sinners in the Congregation take warning by it and not look upon themselves unconcerned Let me then say unto you that your own sin hath found you out and God hath made you a Spectacle to the world of his righteous indignation Your life is forfeited as to man you are made a Curse and may not be suffered to live but must be Cut off lest otherwise the Judgments of God should fall upon the land But still there is hope in Israel concerning this thing with regard to your poor immortal Soul though you must flee to the pit and no man may stay you yet Sovereign Grace can say of you as Job 33 24. Deliver her from going down to the pit I have found a ransom only know and be assured that if ever you be Saved you must be Converted and in order to your being Converted you must be Humbled And for your help I have five things to advise you about and do you look up unto God that you may be enabled solemnly to entertain them 1. Think what an egregious fool you have been if ever God shew you mercy he will imprint this thought on your heart very deep Remember then you were born and brought up in a Land of Uprightness in the Valley of Vision where Christ and Salvation by him hath been published You were admitted in your Childhood to partake in the priviledges of the Gospel Covenant have been by Baptism Sealed to the Service of God and devoted to be for him and no other You have doubtless had many private warnings and counsels given you by your Parents and Kindred and Godly Neighbours You have fat under the clear Dispensations of the Word of God in which you have been many a time over told of your sinful courses and the certain destruction that they would lead you to if you held on in them and been solemnly advised to break off your sins by repentance and all arguments have been used with you to perswade you of the necessity and happiness of your so doing You have seen and heard of the falls of others and of the misery which they brought themselves into thereby You have been your self left by God to fall into scandalous sins and warned thereby to beware and not to go on lest some worse thing should befal you and yet how have you despised instruction scorned reproofs and more desperately resolved in your own ways and courses until the holy God was provoked to leave you up to your self and withhold his restraining grace from you and so suffer you by your unaccountable madnels to lay your self open to the Sword of Justice and you must now dye as one that would not be instructed and you may well reflect on that expostulation and think that you hear God so saying to you Jer. 2. 17. hast thou not procured this to thy self in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God when he led thee by the way Cry out then bitterly of this your own foolishness 2. Be convinced of the amazing danger which you have exposed your self to by your fearful hardness of heart and tremble to think that this hardness that you are under the power of may be Judicial I am sure it is so sometimes in Gods lighteous judgment with such as God hath spoken to used many endeavours with but they would not receive his advice affected hardness is very often punished in this li●e with inflicted hardness as Psal 81. 11 12. my people would not hearken to my voice and Israel would none of me So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts and they walked in their own counsels and what more fearful plague can befal any soul on this side of Hell Had not your heart been dreadful hardned would you not have taken warning by the first fall which God left you to to have avoided evermore exposing of your self to such another nay would it

life while men are in this world conversant in the body they are upon probation for Etetnity they are laying in and making way for their account and all that they do here bears a proper respect thereunto for they are the works which are done in the body which must be called to an after reckoning 2 Cor. 5. 10. hence sinners are said in this time to be treasuring up into themselves wrath against the day of wrath Rom. 2 5. It is evident that neither good men nor evil men are in this life openly distinguished in the observable Providences of God except in some special instances love and hatred cannot be known by all that is before them Eccles 9. 1. yea the wise man hath an observation as if often times the outward face of things look with a contrary aspect Eccles 8. 14. there be just men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous What shall we say It is for the present a day of patience forbearance with which God sees meet to treat men even the worst of men withal in which he lets them alone for a while suffers them to go on till they have filled up their measure and though they give him uncountable and very grievous provocations yet he falls not upon them But yet he is brought in laughing at them all the while and we are told the reason of it Psal 37. 13. The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming Since then men are not called to their reckoning here it remains that they be summoned to it afterwards inasmuch as it is certain that God will sooner or later manifest the glory of his Holiness and Righteousness and make it known that he is the great Potentate and Ruler of Angels and men III. That there is a particular Judgment to which every man shall be called immediately after Death It is true the general Judgment is reserved for the great and last day when after the whole affair of time is wound up God will call all reasonable Creatures to an account and having raised up their dead bodies to life and re united them to their Souls of which Resurrection also the word of God gives us the assurance he will cite them before his Tribunal and dispose of them in their whole persons eternally which day is peculiarly Celebrated in the Book of God which though it also follows after mans death yet it will not be till a long time after a great many have dyed and seen Corruption and that because there were other Generations to be born and live and dy until the whole Series of them according to the Divine appointment be consummated But there is besides this another more particular one which passeth upon the Soul on its departure from the body which though it be not so frequently or expresly spoken of in the Holy Scriptures yet there are also sufficient intimations of it there 〈◊〉 be found enough to confirm our faith in the belief of it This is an indubitable truth that the Soul of man doth not dy a proper natural Death nor is it capable of it The man indeed is said to die by reason of the dissolution of the bond of Union and the separation which is thereupon made between the Soul and Body whereupon the body remains a Carcase and must suffer Corruption after which there must be a powerful Resurrection bestowed on it in order to its being made capable of standing forth in Judgment But it is otherwise with the Soul that in its separate state still retains its Spiritual and Immortal nature which it is in no other way able to lose but by an Anni●ilation and it is accordingly disposed of presently to its unchangable state whether it be of weal or wo. When Lazarus dyeth his Soul is forth with carryed by a Convoy of Angels into Abrabams bosome and that is no other but a place and state of actual Felicity When the Wicked Rich man dyes the next news that we hear of his Soul is in Hell whether it is carried and where it is disposed of and that not only as in a Prison but as a place of Execution where it suffers the penalty which its sin had procured for it for this reason we have him pouting out his doleful complaint Luk. 16. 24. I am tormented in this flame And we have Abraham brought in declaring concerning them both Verse 25. He is comforted and thou art tormented When the penitent Thief dyes he is the same day entertained with his Saviour in Paradise for so Christ himself promised to him Luk. 23. 43. which must needs intend a state of actual blessedness enjoyed in that place And why was Paul in such a strait and so desirous to depart Phil. 1. 23. it was to be with Christ which he saith is best of all which it could not be if he did not presently enter into communion with Christ in blessedness Now certainly mens going actually to receive rewards and punishments necessarily infers a Judgment that is past upon them in order thereunto for those things are beyond all question disposed of by God in the exercise of his Government over the Creature as he is the Judge of all Besides there is such an Indefinite assertion used by the wise man which amounts to an universal and hath a respect to all sorts of men Eccl. 12. 7. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and ●he Spirit shall return to God who gave it These two returns are put together as contemporary and all Souls do not return to God as their Father to be admitted into his Kingdom and to dwell with him and enjoy his favourable presence for ever that is a priviledge proper only to the Godly and none shall enjoy it but those whom Christ hath Redeemed and Saved As for the ungodly it is said concerning them Psal 9. 17. The wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the nations that forget God It is therefore to God as a Judge to be doomed and disposed of by him according to his righteous Judgment IV. That this is an awfull consideration to men while they live and peculiarly so to such as are just ready to dy I may not tarry at these things to give a distinct and particular account of them but must only give some brief glances at them And there are two asser●ions in this Observation 1. It carryes awe in it to men while they live to put them on the greatest Circumspection to themselves in their whole course If there were no Judgment to come what need would there be for men to take any care how or after what manner they lead their lives The Epecurian Doctrine let us drink and drab let us revel and swagger and give every sensual lust its freest scope to satisfie it self might plead if not reason yet immunity and security