the Dead were Iudged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works A Sight have you had as of the Prisoners to be Arraigned the Dead Small and Great of the Judge to pass sentence which though for the Judgement of Principal Authority it shall be every Person in the Trinity for which cause we finde this Day Signally stiled Gods Day 2 Pet. 3.12 Looking for saith he and hastening unto the Day of God yet for the Judgement of Promulging and Pronouncing of sentence it shall be the second Person in that Trinity and that in regard of his Humane Nature The Father saith our Apost. hath given Power to the Son to execute Iudgement because he is the Son of Man Iohn 5.27 So of the Evidence to be given in Recorded in Books and those three principals whereof the first is Gods Statute-Book made up of three Tomes in the first whereof is written the Law of Nature in the second the Law from Sinai in the third the Law from Sion the second his Day-book made up of two whereof the first is of that our own Conscience the second of Gods Remembrance the last his Book of Records and that you have seen to be of a two-fold nature the one that wherein the Church Registreth those for the Sons of God that by an outward Confession of their Faith are received into her Bosome notwithstanding that not a few of them prove afterward Impostours and Hypocrites the other that of his Eternal Fore-knowledge whereby from all Eternity he hath and beyond all Tract of time will acknowledge those for his whom he hath Predestinated to the Adoption of Sons and Ordained to be Heirs of Eternal Life The Equal Proceedings of the Court and the Infallible certainty of all remain only for the present to be discussed And first are we to examine the equal Proceedings of the Court whose impartial Judge shall Examine the whole World upon the works whether Good or Evil they have done And the Dead were Judged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works It is the Lords own word to his People Isa. 55.8 My wayes are not as your wayes And this difference of wayes between him and them the same Lord no less justly then precisely may you hear Contesting with them in point of Equity Ezech. 18.29 Are not my wayes Equal saith he and yours Vnequal Betwixt Heaven and Earth there is not so great a Distance as there is Difference between God and more then a good many Men in the exercise of Judiciary Power The Law which the Civilians say is Sanctio Iusta Iubens Honesta Prohibensque Contraria a Just Constitution commanding things that are Honest and Forbidding the Contrary is in the Court of Heaven reputed the only straight Rule whereunto the subjects of that court are to conform their works ways for their Deviation and Declination from its Rectitude are only punishable For which cause our Evangelists description of sin is that it is the Transgression of the Law in the 1. of his Epistle the 3. Chapter and 4. V. And therefore that word of that other Apostle just reason that it obtain with us the Credit of an Oracle Rom. 4.15 where there is no Law there is no Transgression So that then that word of that other Apostle yet 2. Pet. 1.19 for the word of Prophesie our parts it shall be to conceive directed unto every one of us for the Law that we shall do well to take heed thereunto as unto a Light that shineth in a Dark Place No otherwise then you may observe some careful Mariner for the better guidance of his Ship in a Dark Night to heed a Light which from some Eminent watch-towr may discover it self The Conduct of which Light therefore whose Beams every one of us may clearly discern as the Pilot his Light from the Tower darting out from Heaven upon him for the better steering him a course through the surges of this world shall he not heed no marvel if Straying from the right Path of Justice he wander in Darkness and in the shadow of Death The Proceedings of too too many a Man that assumeth unto himself a Power to Execute Justice not seldome runneth a clean contrary Bias to this They say as those in the Wiseman Wisd. 2.11 Our will is the Law of Iustice And therefore take unto themselves a liberty of Proscribing Imprisoning Condemning yea Executing too whom they please though guiltless of the Transgression of any Law Nor shall the Law be the Rule whereby to examine the work of supposed Dilinquents but their causeles fears and Jealousies shall make Delinquents whomsoever they shall please Whilst themselves in the mean time notwithstanding that they are dipped in as deep a Dye of villany as the blackest Fiends of Hell must yet have Precedence of all the Apostles nay the Virgin Mary her self in Saintship as long as did Saul with an Image in stead of David 1 Sam. 19.13 they can impose upon the purblinde World with empty Shadows and semblances in stead of the true and real Body of Religion and what AEschines sometimes objected to Demosthenes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} can New-dip Extortion Oppression Perjury Tyranny Sacriledge Murther yea very Atheisme with the fair and specious Names of Reformation Beloved As this Great Judge is far from being so Sophistical as to impose upon us with a Fallacy of Non causa pro Causa and so not so Rigid as to Condemn us without the least transgression of any of his Laws so neither may we conceive him to be so Facile and Easie as that he shall be wone to accept of a bare Shew and Profession of Saint-Ship for a perfect observation of this Law of his That Rule of this great Judge By their Fruits you shall know them Mat. 7.16 holdeth as true for all manner false Pretenders as Prophets They are the Fruits of good works only and not the Leaves or Blossoms of vain Ostentation or Profession that shall Acquit or condemn us at the last Day And the Dead were Iudged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works But how The Dead to be Judged according to their works Durus est hic Sermo this is an hard saying and who may abide it What hope of Salvation then shall the most Righteous have to entertain Yea and then as is St. Peters passionate Quaere in the 1. of his Epistle Chapter 4.18 Where shall the Vngodly and the Sinners appear So that then well may David Holy David deprecate this manner of Trial before God Psal. 143.2 Enter not into Iudgement with thy Servant O Lord for in thy sight shall no Man living be Iustified He that hath found no stedfastness in his Servants but hath charged his very Angels with Folly how much more then Man which dwelleth in an House of Clay whose Foundation is in the Dust Alas As the Priest
Confession of the most Reformed Divines shall be the Sign of the Cross which shall then as a Glorious standard before a victorious General in a Triumphant manner be carried before him so shall we likewise in this Book of Conscience see many other signs Hieroglyphicks too And then where shall the bribing Gehaze hide his Head when he shall see the Hieroglyphick of two Talents of Silver of which he hath cheated some Credulous Naaman where the Extorting Ahab at the sight of the Hieroglyphick of a Vineyard Where the Blood-thirsty Herod and Assassine Pilate at the sight of the Hieroglyphicks of Thousands of Innocents they have most unjustly Imprisoned Condemned and Butchered Where the wanton at the now sad sight of his lustful Mistresses with whom he hath formerly taken his fill of lawless Love Where the Riotous at the sight of the full-crowned Cups wherewith he hath every day been intoxicating his Frantick Brains no less dreadfully then undeniably indenting their several Guilts Nor yet hath Humane Invention stayed here but hath devised a latter way of writing with the Juice of Limons whose Characters are in no wise to be read until you bring them to the Fire but then may they easily and distinctly be read by every Eye The Conscience writeth no way more like then this Here the Letters wherein she sets down our Lapses are ofttimes so mysterious and obscure that they are no way obvious to any Mans scarce to our own Eyes Nay as we say that there is none so blinde as he that will not see who seeth not how prone we are deliberately to hood-winck our selves for the shutting of our sins clean out of the reach of our eye-sight Lest as the People in the Prophet Esay 6.10 seeing with our Eyes and hearing with our Ears and understanding with our Hearts we might be converted and God should heal us But when these shall come to be brought to that Fire of Judgement which shall Burn up the whole World with the works thereof then shall they appear in such just and full Dimensions that the clear sight of them shall strike us with Horrour and Astonishment Conscience then that as her Master will search Ierusalem with Lights Zephan 1.12 shall by the Light of this Fire search into the most secret and recluse corners of our Hearts and expose our most secret sins not to our own private only but to the whole worlds publick view and will then round every one of us in the ear for every particular sin of ours as did Nathan sometimes David for his Adultery 1 Sam. 12.12 Thou didst it secretly but I will do it openly and before the Sun And yet is not Humane Invention in this Case come to its Hercules Pillars a way of writing by Characters and Ciphers is of late grown very ordinary and familiar with us And let it be our subtlest Study to write our sins in never so abstruse and dark an Impress of this nature yet will Conscience be sure to make her self Mistress of the Key and so unciphering whatsoever we have written will be publishing the Contents to the whole world And then though as an Atome in the Ayre is not to be seen as long as the Sun withdraweth himself but Myriads innumerable as soon as he openeth our sins that all our life long perhaps having wilfully resolved to walk in Darkness and the Shadow of Death have no more appeared unto us then Atomes in a Cloudy Day will then too palpably discover themselves at the appearance of this Sun of Righteousness and at our Common standing up both Small and Great before this Iudgement Seat But be it that Conscience may be so wrought upon as to embesil or Cancel whatever Handwriting in this Tome of hers she may have against us yet is there in this Book another Tome of Gods Remembrance wherein whatever Evidence may be recorded we may in no wise hope that it shall be so slubbered or suppressed but that it will too surely be produced Our Apostles passage to this purpose is very Pregnant and Pithy in the 3. of his 1. Epistle If our Hearts condem us not then have we Confidence towards God but God however is greater then our Conscience and seeth all things It is a received Maxime amongst us of Aged men that there is no Faculty in them decayeth so soon as their Memory It is otherwise with the Antient of Days for so finde we this Judge Dan. 9.7 expresly stiled his Memory no more then his Days Psal. 102.27 are at any time failing him He hath his Book of undecaying Remembrance as for those that fear his Name Mal. 3.16 so for those that transgress any of his Laws out of which as the good Householder out of his Treasury Mat. 13.54 he will still be readily drawing out an heavy charge both of our Old and New sins against us Nay whereas Memoria est Praeteritorum our Memory hath nothing naturally for its object but things past whatever we have Acted or are Acting at any time throughout the whole course of our Lives is still present to his Remembrance I Remember all their wickedness is the Lords own word of his People now their own doings have beset them they are before my Face And now when these two Tomes of our own Conscience and Gods Remembrance shall make up a Day-book like that in the Prophet Zach. 5.2 a Flying Book whose wings shall carry it from one End of the Heaven to the other that every Man may run and read the Contents thereof a Great Book and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as it is in the Proverb a Great Evil in being so Great a Book of twenty Cubits long and ten Broad whereof every Page shall be filled up with the black Catalogue of our deep Carowsings our wanton Dalliances our horrid Oppressions our Sacrilegious Transactions our damned Dissimulations how shall it appear unto us like that Roul of Ezechiels Book in the 2. of his Prophesie and 10. written within and without with Lamentation and Mourning and woe If some upon but a Private perusal of their yet perhaps secret sins which their Consciences in their Solitary Retiredness have called to their Remembrance have most desperately made their own Hands their own Executioners then how insupportably think we shall the Burthen of our Anguish lie upon us when God out of the Book of his Remembrance shall be publishing a particular List of all our Errours and Enormities in the Audience of the whole World And shall therefore be upon the point of his just Tasting us as Babylon in the 16. of this Book and 19. with the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of his wrath This Book my Beloved is not yet Opened And then as we hope to escape the fierceness of this wrath at this Day when both Small and Great of us shall stand before this Iudgement-Seat Prevention we say is the Heart of Policy if we Judge our selves the Apostle warranteth us that we
not God so much as a man like unto themselves speaking unto them in judgement and so as the Apostle in another case 2 Cor. 4. 7. shall have the Heavenly treasure of the final discharge and acquittance from the guilt of all their sins brought unto them in an earthen though now glorified vessel what darkness and blackness of horrour think we shall seize the souls of the wicked when they shall see him whom they have pierced as it is in the 1. of this Book 7. when as St. Hierom cerves manus Iudaee quas fixeras The Iew shall see the Head he hath wounded And the Roman the side he hath gored Nay if Iosephs brethren were not a little affrighted and afflicted at his presence when he told them that he was Ioseph whom they had sold into Egypt Gen. 45. how shall even the best of us sinful souls appear stricken with astonishment when we shall hear this our Brother but now judge semblably upbraiding us I am Jesus your Saviour whom from time to time you have sold for the vile price of sin And so upon the result shall desire the murtherous Barabbas of your sinful concupiscence to be given you and vote his delivery up a second time to be crucified when the Sun the Moon and the Stars shall in an awful reverence hide their heads when the Heavens shall be rolled up like a Scroule and the Elements melt with heat how shall the faces of sinners be abased and confounded The dreadful sound of the Trumpet that shall cleave the Rocks startle the dead out of their Graves yea shake the very Powers of Heaven how shall it thunderstrike the guilty conscience O Angustia saith holy Anselme Hic erunt Accusantia Peccata c. O the anguish of spirit we shall in that day be surprized with on the one side we shall hear our sins accusing us on the other Justice threatning us under Hell gaping for us above an angry Judge writing bitter things against us within the conscience galling without the world burning Quando latere erit impossibile as that Father goeth on when a Latitat shall be impossible and yet an Appearance intolerable our God shall come and shall not keep silence saith the Royal Prophet there shall go before him a consuming fire and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him Psal. 50.3 Et sitalis terror futurus sit advenientis saith Eusebius Emissenus upon the words and if to the eye the appearance of his person shall be so horrid how hideously think we will the sound of his sentence ring in the ear Certainly Horror ubique animos plurima Nostris Imago Tribulation and Anguish must needs be on that Day in great extremity upon those souls that shall then appear with any of their unrepented sins about them when we shall all both small and great come to stand up before God But here me thinketh I hear as some with the Saints under the Altar in the 12. of this Book 10. crying out How long Lord holy and true doest thou not judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth So others as those in St. Peter in the 2. of his Epistle 3.4 scoffing where is the promise of his comming For all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation All as the Disciples Matthew 24.3 busily enquiring Quando ist haec erunt When shall these things be Learn a Parable of the Fig-Tree you know is our Saviour just answer to this their curious Quare Verse 32. of the above-praised Chapter And now from time to time we have seen no withered Fig-tree putting forth many a Prognostick Leaf how insensible shall we proclaim our selves if the sight of such a spectacle shall not induce us without the least Haesitation to conclude that this summer this scorching summer is very near at hand what the least abatement even amongst our new self-canonizing Saints of excess of wantonness of pride of sacriledge of perjury of all manner vanities nay an abominable grouth of al these do we find even now that Leves undae as S. Greg. speaketh those lesser waves of our long continued unnatural self-wasting Jars still tossing and turmoiling us nay of the abomination of desolation still laving and wasling away all the Religious endowments of our holy Places yea and now standing with as great confidence in them as if he were of Gods own placing as if their errand were expresly to tell us that it cannot be long ere the Lord in a dreadfull tempest of Fire as in Noahs days sometimes of water arise to judge the earth of which signs our Saviour himself in the above-praised Mat. 24 what palpable symbols of Antichrist unmasked doth our daily experience present us withal in the well-nigh universal exaltation we sadly see against all that is called God and in that late starting up of not a few withall deceivableness of unrighteousnes of which the Apostle 2 Thes. 2 what swarms of Apostats from the faith giving heed to the seducing spirits of false Prophets speaking lyes in Hypocrisie even such as would make the blackest Fiends of Hell to blush forbidding to marry at least the regular way by the Priests tying that sacred knot and substituting I know not what profane exotick hand to act in the place thereof of which the same Apostle 1 Tim. 4 what heards and troops of covetous proud boasters blasphemers truce-breakers false accusers despisers of those that are good Traitors heady high-minded having a show of godliness but denying the power thereof Creepers into houses leading captive silly women laden with sins and led away with diverse lusts of which the same Apostle 2 Tim. 3. what mockers even mockers of God sometimes by Mock-fasts in order or disorder rather to the smiting with the fist of wickedness and setting Naboth on high for the effusion of his Innocent blood and the seizure of his poor vineyard and Mock thanksgivings sometimes for deliverance from Poetick dangers which God in his good time may in justice make reall Nay as in our Chronicles we read of the Scotch that having invaded our Borders and having observed a great mortality in our English camp and upon a cessation of Arms enquiring of our Country men the reason and told that it came by Gods grace they daily prayed to be delivered from that foul disease and fra Gods grace what thanksgivings have been made for a deliverance from Gods choisest blessings the best established Government and ordered Religion the world ever heard of of which St. Iude the 18. of his Epistle what storms of persecution against the true Professours of Christs name by a war upon them and a victory over them of which our Divine Evangelist in the 11. of this Book and 7. Some of the Rabbins I meet with of whose fancies I shall have to just reason to say what St. Augustin sometimes of the School-mens arguments Dum lucent subtilitate franguntur vanitate that while