Sermon XCIII

SERMON XCIII.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

John V. 22.

The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son.

When our Saviour forbids us to cast pearl before swine¹, we understand ordinarily in that place, that by pearl are understood the Scriptures, and when we consider the natural generation and production of pearl, that they grow bigger and bigger, by a continual succession, and devolution of dew, and other glutinous moisture that falls upon them, and there condenses and hardens, so that a pearl is but a body of many shells, many crusts, many films, many coats enwrapped upon one another. To this Scripture which we have in hand, doth that metaphor of pearl very properly appertain, because our Saviour Christ in this chapter undertaking to prove his own divinity and Godhead to the Jews, who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God, but denied it of him, he folds and wraps up reason upon reason, argument upon argument, that all things are common between

the Father and him, that whatsoever the Father does, ha does, whatsoever the Father is, he is; for first, he says, he is a partner, a co-operator with the Father, in the present administration and government of the world, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work; well, if the Father do ease himself upon instruments now, yet was it so from the beginning? had he a part in the creation? Yes; What things soever the Father doth, those also doth the Son likewise. But do those extend to the work properly, and naturally belonging to God, to the remission, to the effusion of grace, to the spiritual resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities? Yes, even to that too, For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. But hath not this power of his a determination, or expiration \ Shall it not end, at least when the world ends? No, not then, for God hath given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Is there then no supersedeas upon this commission? Is the Son equal with the Father in our eternal election, in our creation, in the means of our salvation, in the last judgment, in all? In all, omne judicium, God hath committed all judgment to the Son; and here is a pearl made up, the dew of God's grace sprinkled upon your souls, the beams of God's spirit shed upon your souls, that effectual and working knowledge; that he who died for your salvation is perfect God, as well as perfect man, fit, as willing to accomplish that salvation.

In handling then this judgment, which is a word that embraces and comprehends all, all from our election, where no merit or future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election, where all our actions shall be considered and recompensed by him, we shall see first that judgment belongs properly to God; and secondly, that God the Father whom we consider to be the root and foundation of the deity, can no more divest his judgment than he can his Godhead, and therefore in third place we consider, what that committing of judgment, which is mentioned here imports, and then to whom it is committed, to the Son: and lastly the largeness of that which is committed, omne, all judgment, so that we cannot carry our thoughts so high, or so far backwards, as to think of any judgment given upon us in God's purpose or decree without relation to Christ; nor so far forward, as to think that there shall be a judgment given upon us, according to our good, moral dispositions or actions, but according to our apprehension and imitation of Christ. Judgment is a proper and inseparable character of God; that is first, the Father cannot divest himself of that; that is next. The third is that he hath committed it to another; and then the person that is his delegate, is his only Son, and lastly his power is everlasting; and that judgment-day that belongs to him, hath, and shall last from our first election, through the participation of the means prepared by him in his church, to our association and union with him in glory, and so the whole circle of time, and before time was, and when time shall be no more, makes up but one judgment-day to him, to whom the Father who judgeth no man hath committed all judgment.

First then judgment appertains to God, it is his in criminal causes, Vindicta mihi, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord*; it is so in civil things too; for God himself is proprietary of all, Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus, The earth is the Lord's, and all that is in, and on the earth; Your silver is mine, and your gold is mine, says the prophet, and the beasts on a thousand hills are mine, says David, you are usufructuaries of them, but I am proprietary; no attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures, no state of God so often inculcated, as this Judge, and Judgment: no word concerning God so often repeated, but it is brought to the height, where in that place of the Psalm, where we read, God judgeth among the gods³, the Latin church ever read it, Deus dijudicat deos, God judgeth the gods themselves, for though God say of judges and magistrates, Ego dixi dii estis; I have said ye are gods, (and if God say it, who shall gainsay it?) yet he says too, Moriemini, sicut homines, The greatest gods upon earth, shall die like men; and if that be not humiliation enough, there is more threatened in that which follows, ye shall fall like one of the princes, for the fall of a prince involves the ruin of many others too, and it fills the world with horror for the present, and ominous discourse for the future; but the farthest of all is Deus dijudicat deos, even these judges must come to judgment, and therefore that

^! Rom. xii. 19. ⁸ Psalm i.xxxii. 1.

Vol. iv. o

Psalm -which begins so, is concluded thus, Surge Domine, Arise 0 God, and judge the earth: if he have power to judge the earth, he is God, and even in God himself it is expressed as a kind of rising, as some exaltation of his power that he is a Judge; and that place in the beginning of that Psalm many of the ancient3 read in the future dijudicabit, God shall judge the gods, because the frame of the Psalm seems to refer it to the last judgment; Tertullian reads it dijudicavit, as a thing past, God hath judged in all times; and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present, dijudicat. Collect all, and judgment is so essential to God, as that it is co-eternal with him, he hath, he doth, and he will judge the world, and the judges of the world, other judges die like men, weakly, and they fall, that is worse, ignominiously, and they fall like princes, that is worst, fearfully, and yet scornfully, and when they are dead and fallen, they rise no more to execute judgment, but have judgment executed upon them; the Lord dies not, nor he falls not, and if he seem to slumber, the martyrs under the altar awake him with their Usque quo Domine, How long 0 Lord before thou execute judgment? And he will arise and judge the world, for judgment is his; God putteth dozen one, and setteth up another, says David⁴; where hath he that power? Why, God is the Judge, not a judge, but the Judge, and in that right he putteth down one, and setteth up another.

Now for this judgment, which we place in God, we must consider in God three notions, three apprehensions, three kinds of judgment. First, God hath judicium detestationis, God doth naturally know, and therefore naturally detest evil; for no man in the extremest corruption of nature is yet fallen so far, as to love or approve evil at the same time that he knows, and acknowledges it to be evil. But we are so blind in the knowledge of evil, that we needed that great supplement, and assistance of the law itself to make us know what was evil; Moses magnifies (and justly) the law, Non appropinquavit, says Moses, God came not so near to any nation as to the Jews; non taliter fecit, God dealt not so well with any nation, as with the Jews, and wherein? because he had given them a law, and yet we see the greatest dignity of this law, to be, That by the law is the knowledge of

sin; for though by the law of nature written in our hearts, there be some condemnation of some sins, yet to know that every sin was treason against God, to know that every sin hath the reward Of death, and eternal death annexed to it; this knowledge we have only by the law. Now if man will pretend to be a judge, what an exact knowledge of the law is required at his hand! for some things are sin to one nation, which are not to another, as where the just authority of the lawful magistrate changes the nature of the thing, and makes a thing riaturally indifferent, necessary to them, who are under his obedience; some things are sins at one time, which are not at another, as all the ceremonial law created new sins which were not sins before the law was given, nor since it expired; some things are sins in a man now, which will not be sins in the same man to-morrow, as when a man hath contracted a just scruple, against any particular action, it is a sin to do it during the scruple, and it may be sin in him to omit it, when he hath divested the scruple; only God hath judicium detestationis, he knows, and therefore detests evil, and therefore flatter not thyself with a Tush, God sees it not, or, Tush, God cares not, Doth it disquiet him or trouble his rest in heaven that I brake his Sabbath here? Doth it wound his body, or draw his blood there, that I swear by his body and blood here? Doth it corrupt any of his virgins there, that I solicit the chastity of a woman here? Are his martyrs withdrawn from their allegiance, or retarded in their service to him there, because I dare not defend his cause, nor speak for him, nor fight for him here? Beloved, it is a degree of superstition, and an effect of an indiscreet zeal, perchance, to be too forward in making indifferent things necessary, and so to imprint the nature, and sting of sin where naturally it is not so: certainly it is a more slippery and irreligious thing to be too apt to call things merely indifferent, and to forget that even in eating and drinking, waking and sleeping, the glory of God is intermingled, as if we knew exactly the prescience and foreknowledge of God, there could be nothing contingent or casual, (for though there be a contingency in the nature of the thing, yet it is certain to God) so if we considered duly, wherein the glory of God might be promoved in every action of ours, there could scarce be any action so indifferent, but that the glory of God would turn the scale and make it necessary to me, at that time; but then private interests, and private respects create a new indifferency to my apprehension, and calls me to consider that thing as it is in nature, and not as it is considered with that circumstance of the glory of God, and so I lose that judicium detestationis, which only God hath absolutely and perfectly to know, and therefore to detest evil, and so he is a Judge.

And as he is a Judge, so judicat rem, he judges the nature of the thing, he is so too, as he hath judicium discretions, and so judicat personem, he knows what is evil, and he discerns when thou committest that evil. Here you are fain to supply defects of laws, that things done in one county may be tried in another; and that in offences of high nature, transmarine offences may be inquired and tried here; but as the prophet says, Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or meted out the heavens tcith a span, who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, or weighed the mountains in a scaled So I say, who hath divided heaven into shires or parishes, or limited the territories and jurisdictions there, that God should not have judicium discretionis, the power of discerning all actions, in all places? When there was no more to be seen, or considered upon the whole earth but the garden of Paradise, for from the beginning deliciw ejus esse cum filiis hominum, God's delight was to be with the sons of men, and man was only there, shall we not diminish God, nor speak too vulgarly of him to say, that he hovered like a falcon over Paradise, and that from that height of heaven, the piercing eye of God saw so little a thing, as the forbidden fruit, and what became of that, and the reaching ear of God heard the hissing of the serpent, and the whispering of the woman, and what was concluded upon that? Shall we think it little to have seen things done in Paradise, when there was nothing else to divert his eye, nothing else to distract his counsels, nothing else done upon the face of the earth? Take the earth now as it is replenished, and take it either, as it is torn and crumbled into rags, and shivers, not a kingdom, not a family, not a man agreeing with himself; or take it in that concord which is in it, as All the kings of the earth set themselves, and all the rulers of the earth take counsel

⁵ Isaiah XL. 12.

together against the Lord'; take it in this union, or this division, in this concord, or this discord, still the Lord that sitteth in the heavens discerns all, looks at all, laughs at all, and hath them all in derision. Earthly judges have their distinctions, and so their restrictions, some things they cannot know, what mortal man can know all? Some things they cannot take knowledge of, for they are bound to evidence: but God hath judicium discretionis, no mist, no cloud, no darkness, no disguise keeps him from discerning, and judging all our actions, and so he is a Judge too.

And he is so lastly, as he hath judicium retributionis, God knows what is evil, he knows when that evil is done, and he knows, how to punish and recompense that evil: for the office of a judge who judges according to a law, being not to contract, or extend that law, but to declare what was the true meaning of that law-maker when he made that law, God hath this judgment in perfection, because he himself made that law by which ho judges, and therefore when he hath said, Morte morieris, If thou do this, thou shalt die a double death, where he hath said, Stipendium peccati mors est, every sin shall be rewarded with death; If I sin against the Lord, who shall intreat for me¹? Who shall give any other interpretation, any modification, any non obstante upon his law in my behalf, when he comes to judge me according to that law which himself hath made? Who shall think to delude the judge, and say, Surely this was not the meaning of the lawgiver, when he who is the judge was the law-maker too I

And then as God is judge in all these three respects, so is he a judge in them all, sine appellatione, and sine judiciis, man cannot appeal from God, God needs no evidence from man; for, for the appeal first, to whom should we appeal from the sovereign? Wrangle as long as ye will who is chief justice, and which court hath jurisdiction over another; I know the chief justice, and I know the sovereign court, the King of heaven and earth shall send his ministering spirits, his angels, to the womb, and bowels of the earth, and to the bosom, and bottom of the sea, and earth must deliver, corpus cum causa, all the bodies of the dead, and all their actions, to receive a judgment in this court: when it will be but an erroneous, and frivolous appeal, to call to the hills to

⁶ Psalm ii. 2. ⁷ 1 Sam. ii. 23.

fall down upon us, and the mountains to cover, and hide us from the wrathful judgment of God. He is a judge then sine appellatione, without any appeal, from him, he is so too sine judiciis, without needing any evidence from us. Now if I be wary in my actions here, incarnate devils, detractors, and informers cannot accuse me; if my sin come not to action, but lie only in my heart, the devil himself who is the accuser of the brethren, hath no evidence against me, but God knows my heart; doth not he that pondereth the heart, understand it*? Where it is not in that faint word, which the vulgar edition hath expressed it in, inspector cordium, that God sees the heart; but the word is tochen, which signifies every where to weigh, to number, to search, to examine, as the word is used by Solomon again, The Lord uoeigheth the spirits¹, and it must be a ready hand, and exact scales that shall weigh spirits. So that though neither man, nor devil, nay nor myself give evidence against me, yea, though I know nothing by myself, I am not thereby justified, why I Where is the farther danger? In this which follows there in St. Paul, He that judges me is the Lord¹⁰, and the Lord hath means to know my heart better than myself: and therefore, as St. Augustine makes use of those words, Abyssus abyssum invocat, One depth calls upon another, the infinite depth of my sins must call upon the more infinite depth of God's mercy, for if God, who is judge in all these respects, judicio detestationis, he knows, and abhors evil, and judicio discretionis, he discerns every evil person, and every evil action, judicio retributionis, he can, and will recompense evil with evil; and all these sine appellatione, we cannot appeal from him, and sine judiciis, he needs no evidence from us; if this judgment enter into judgment with me, not only not I, but not the most righteous man, no, nor the church whom he hath washed in his blood, that she might be without spot or wrinkle, shall appear righteous in his sight.

This being then thus, that judgment is an unseparable character of God the Father, being fons Deitatis, the root and spring of the whole Deity, how is it said, that the Father judgeth no man? Not that we should conceive a weariness, or retiring in the

Prov, xxjv, 12, ⁹ Prov. xvi. 2. ¹⁰ 1 Cor. iv. 4.

Father, or a discharging of himself upon the shoulders, and labours of another, in the administration, and judging of this world; for as it is truly said, that God rested the seventh day, that is, he rested from working in that kind, from creating, so it is true that Christ says here; My Father woriceth yet, and I work, and so as it is truly said here, The Father judgeth no man, it is truly said by Christ too, of the Father, I seek not mine own glory, there is one that seeketh, and judgeth; still it is true, that God hath Judicium detestationis, Thy eyes are pure eyes 0 Lord, and cannot behold iniquity, says the prophet, still it is true, that he hath judicium discretionis (because they committed villany in Israel, and I know it¹¹, saith the Lord;) still it is true, that he hath judicium retributionis, The Lord killeth and maketh alive, he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up "; still it is true, that he hath all these sine appellatione; for go to the sea, or earth, or hell, as David makes the distribution, and God is there; and he hath them sine judiciis, for our witness is in heaven, and our record is on high¹³: all this is undeniably true, and besides this, that great name of God, by which he is first called in the Scriptures Elohim, is not inconveniently derived from Elah, which is jurare, to swear, God is able as a judge to minister an oath unto us, and to draw evidence from our own consciences against ourselves, so that then the Father he judges still, but he judges as God, and not as the Father. In the three great judgments of God, the whole Trinity judges, in the first judgment, before all times, which was God's judiciary separating of vessels of honour, from vessels of dishonour, in our election, and reprobation; in his second judgment, which is in execution now, which is God's judiciary separating of servants from enemies, in the seals, and in the administration of the Christian church; and in the last judgment, which shall be God's judiciary separating of sheep from goats, to everlasting glory, or condemnation; in all these three judgments, all the three Persons of the Trinity are judges. Consider God altogether, and so in all outward works, all the Trinity concurs, because all are but one God; but consider God in relation, in distinct persons, and so the several persons do something

¹¹ Jer. xxix. 23. ^1* 1 Sam. ii. 6. ¹³ Job xvi. 19.

in which the other persons are not interested; the Son hath not a generation from himself, so, as he had from the Father, and from the Holy Ghost, as a distinct person, he had none at all; the Holy Ghost had a proceeding from the Father and Son, but from the Son as a person, who had his generation from another, but not so from the Father. Not to stray into clouds, or perplexities in this contemplation, God, that is, the whole Trinity, judges still, but so as the Son judgeth, the Father judgeth not, for that judgment he hath committed.

That we may husband our hour well, and reserve as much as we can for our two last considerations, the cut, et quid, to whom, and that's to the Son, and what he hath committed, and that's all judgment, we will not stand much upon this, more needs not than this; that God in his wisdom foreseeing, that man for his weakness would not be able to settle himself upon God and his judgments, as they are merely heavenly, and spiritual, out of his abundant goodness hath established a judgment, and ordained a judge upon earth like himself, and like ourselves too, that as no man hath seen God, so no man should go about to see his unsearchable decrees, and judgments, but rest in those sensible, and visible means which he hath afforded, that is, Christ Jesus speaking in his church, and applying his blood unto us in the sacraments to the world's end: God might have suffered Abraham to rest in the first general promise, Semen mulieris, The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head, but he would bring it nearer to a visible, to a personal covenant, In semine tuo, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed; he might well have let him rest in that appropriation of the promise to his race, but he would proceed farther, and seal it with a sensible seal in his flesh with circumcision; he might have let him rest in that ratification, that a Messias should come by that way, but he would continue it by a continual succession of prophets, till that Messias should come; and now that be is come and gone, still God pursues the same way; How should they believe, except they hear? And therefore God evermore supplies his church with visible and sensible means, and knowing the natural inclination of man, when ho cannot have, or cannot comprehend the original, and prototype, to satisfy, and refresh himself with a picture, or representation;

so, though God hath forbidden us that slippery, and frivolous, and dangerous use of graven images, yet he hath afforded us his Son, who is the image of the invisible God¹*, and so more proportional unto us, more apprehensible by us; and so this committing is no more but that God, in another form than that of God, hath manifested his power of judging, and this committing, this manifestation is in Filio, in his Son.

But in the entrance into the handling of this, we ask only this question, Cui filio, to which Son of God is this commission given? Not that God had more sons than one; but because that son is his son by a two-fold filiation; by an eternal, and inexpressible generation, and by a temporary, but miraculous incarnation, in which of these rights is this commission derived upon him? doth he judge as he is the Son of God? or as he is the son of man? I am not ordinarily bold in determining points (especially if they were fundamental) wherein I find the fathers among themselves, and the school in itself, and the reverend divines of the Reformation amongst themselves to differ; but yet neither am I willing to raise doubts, and leave the auditory unsatisfied, and unsettled; we are not upon a lecture, but upon a sermon, and therefore we will not multiply variety of opinions; sum up the fathers upon one side in St. Ambrose's mouth, and they will say with him, ffuic dedit ubique generando, non largiendo, God gave his Son this commission then (and when was that then ?) then when he begot him, and then he must have it by his eternal generation, as the Son of God: sum up the fathers on the other side, in St. Augustine's mouth, and there they will say with him, that it is so clear, and so certain, that whatsoever is said in the Scripture to be committed, and given to Christ, belongs to Christ as the Son of man, and not as the Son of God, as that the other opinion cannot be maintained; and 'at this distance we shall never bring them to meet, but to take in this rule, Judicium convenit ei ut homo, causa ut Deus, God hath given Christ this commission as man, but Christ had not been capable of this commission if he had no been God too, and so it is easily reconciled: if we shall hold simply to the letter of the text, Pater dedit, then it will seem to have beep committed to him in

his eternal generation, because that was a work of the Father's only, and in that generation the Holy Ghost had no part; but since in this judgment, which is now committed to him, the Holy Ghost hath a part, (for as we said before, the judgment is an act of the whole Trinity) we must look for a commission from the whole Trinity, and that is as he is man, for, tota Trinitas univtt humanitatem¹*, the hypostatical union of God and man in the person of Christ, was a work of the whole Trinity.

Taking it then so settled, that the capacity of this judgment, and (if we may say so) the future title to it, was given to him, as God by his essence, in his eternal generation, by which non vitw particeps, sed vita naturaliter est¹', we cannot say that Christ hath life, but that he is life, for whatsoever the Father is, he is, excepting only the name and relation of Father, the capacity, the ability is in him, eternally before any imaginable, any possible consideration of time; but the power of the actual execution of this judgment, which is given, and is committed, is in him as man: because as the same father says, Ad hominem dicitur, Quid habes quod non accepisti? When St. Paul says, What hast thou that thou hast not received? he asks that question of a man, that which is received, is received as man, for as Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrel at some few words of Calvin's¹⁷, though he confess the matter to be true, and (as he calls it there) Catholic, says, Essentiam, genitam negamus, we confess that Christ hath not his essence from his Father by generation, the relation, the filiation, he hath from his Father, he hath the name of Son, but he hath not this execution of this judgment by that relation, by that filiation, still as the Son of God, he hath the capacity as the Son of man, he hath the execution; and therefore Prosper, that follows St. Augustine, limits perchance too narrowly to the very flesh, to the humanity, Ipsa (not ipse) erit judex, qum sub judice stetit, and ipsa judicabit, quw judicata est, where he places not this judgment upon the mixed person (which is the safest way) of God and man, but upon man alone, God hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness; but by whom? By that man

¹⁵ Augustine. "Cyril. » De Christo. L 2. c. 19.

whom he hath ordained God will judge still; but still in Christ; and therefore says St. Augustine upon those words: Arise 0 Lord, and judge the earth, Cui Deo dicitur surge, nisi ei qui dormivit? What God doth David call upon to arise, but that God who lay down to sleep in the grave? as though ho should say (says Augustine) Dormivisti judicatus a terra, surge etjudica terrain. So that to collect all, though judgment be such a character of God as he cannot divest, yet the Father hath committed such a judgment to the Son, as none but he can execute.

And what is that I Omne judicium, all judgment, that is, omne imperium, omnem potestatem; it is presented in the name of judgment, but it involves all, it is literally, and particularly judgment in St. John, The Father hath given him authority to execute judgment¹*, it is extended unto power in St. Matthew, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth"; and it is enlarged as far farther, as can be expressed or conceived, in another place of St. Matthew, All things are delivered to me of my Father**. Now all things our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises, either per carnem, or at least in carne, whatsoever the Fathor does, the Son docs too, in carne, because now there is an unseparable union betwixt God and the human nature: the Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of children, and the Son creates them with him; the Father concurs with all second causes as the first moving cause of all natural things, and all this the Son does too; but all this in carne; though he be in our human flesh, he is not the less able to do the acts belonging to the Godhead, but per carnem, by the flesh instrumentally, visibly, he executes judgment, because he is the Son of man, God hath been so indulgent to man, as that there should be no judgment given upon man, but man should give it; Christ then having all judgment, we refresh to your memory those three judgments which we touched upon before; first, the judgment of our election, severing of vessels of honour and dishonour; next, the judgment of our justification here, severing of friends from enemies; and the judgment of our glorification, severing sheep from goats; and for the first, of our election, as if I were under

¹⁸ John'v. 27. ¹⁹ Matt, xxviii. 18. ^so Matt. xi. 27.

the condemnation of the law, for some capital offence, and going to execution, and the king's mercy expressed in a sealed pardon were presented me, I should not stand to inquire what moved tho king to do it, what he said to anybody else, what anybody else said to him, what he saw in me, or what he looked for at my hands, but embrace that mercy cheerfully and thankfully, and attribute it only to his abundant goodness: so, when I consider myself to have been let fall into this world, in massa damnata, under the general condemnation of mankind, and yet by the working of God's spirit, I find at first a desire, and after, a modest assurance, that I am delivered from that condemnation, I inquire not what God did in his bed-chamber, in his cabinet council, in his eternal decree, I know that he hath made judicium electionis in Christ Jesus: and therefore that I may know, whether I do not deceive myself, in presuming myself to be of that number, I come down, and examine myself whether I can truly tell my conscience, that Christ Jesus died for me, which I cannot do, if I have not a desire and an endeavour to conform myself to him; and if I do that, there I find my predestination, I am a Christian, and I will not offer to go before my master Christ Jesus, I cannot be saved before there was a Saviour, in Christ Jesus is omne Judicium, all judgment, and therefore the judgment of election, the first separation of vessels of honour and dishonour in election and reprobation was in Christ Jesus.

Much more evidently is the second judgment of our justification by means ordained in the Christian church, the judgment of Christ, it is the gospel of Christ which is preached to you there; there is no name given under heaven whereby you shall be saved, there are no other means whereby salvation shall be applied in his name given, but those which he hath instituted in his church; so that when I come to the second judgment, to try whether I stand justified in the sight of Christ, or not, I come for that judgment to Christ in his church; do I remember what I contracted with Christ Jesus, when I took the name of a Christian at my entrance into his church by baptism? Do I find I have endeavoured to perform those conditions? Do I find a remorse when I have not performed them? Do I feel the remission of those sins applied to me wheji I hear the gracious promises of the

gospel shed upon repentant sinners by the mouth of his minister? Have I a true and solid consolation, (without shift, or disguise, or flattering of my conscience) when I receive the seal of his pardon in the Sacrament? Beloved, not in any moral integrity, not in keeping the conscience of an honest man, in general, but in using well the means ordained by Christ in the Christian church, am I justified. And therefore this judgment of justification is his too. And then the third and last judgment, which is the judgment of glorification, that is easily agreed by all to appertain unto Christ, Idem Jesus, the same Jesus that ascended, shall come to judgment, Videbunt quem pupugerunt, Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him^Si; then the Son of man shall come in glory, and he, as man, shall give the judgment, for things done, or omitted towards him as man, for not feeding, for not clothing, for not harbouring, for not visiting. The sum of all is, that this is the overflowing goodness of God, that he deals with man by the Son of man; and that he hath so given all judgment to the Son, as that if you would be tried by the first judgment; are you elected or no! The issue is, do you believe in Christ Jesus, or no? If you would be tried by the second judgment, are you justified or no? The issue is, do you find comfort in the application of the Word, and Sacraments of Christ Jesus, or no! If you would be tried by the third judgment, do you expect a glorification, or no? The issue is, are you so reconciled to Christ Jesus now, by hearty repentance for sins past, and by detestation of occasion of future sin, that you durst welcome that angel which should come at this time, and swear that time should be no more, that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute, and that this minute you might say unfeignedly and effectually, Veni Domine Jesu; come quickly, come now; if this be your state, then are you partakers of all that blessedness, which the Father intended to you, when for your sake, he committed all judgment to the Son.

"Rev. i. 7.