amongst men, if the mercy of God do not interpose in the day of judgment.

For alas! who is so holy, who so pure and innocent, as to stand with any confidence in that all-discerning light of the Sun of Righteousness: "Whose eyes are a thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, and considering their most secret parts."

I have been guilty, most merciful Father, I have been guilty of manifold miscarriages, which I have now forgotten; nor can I, through the strictest examination of myself, recall to my memory many of mine offences. But although I cannot, "yet Thou numberest my steps: dost Thou not watch over my sin? my transgression is sealed up in a bag, and Thou sewest up mine iniquities." So surely are all my transgressions kept in store against the day of my trial; whilst I, sensual and secure, think all is well enough with me, and that my sins are forgotten: "O cleanse Thou me from all my secret faults" and as they are hid from my memory, hide Thou Thy face from

Ecclus. xxiii. 19.
h Psalm lxi. 9.

SO

them";" blot them out of Thy book of remembrance, that they appear not to my confusion on that great and last day.

II.

1. "The Lord hath made all things for Himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." The great day of judgment is called Kaт' ¿oxv, "the day of evil :" as for which day, the Lord hath reserved the full execution of His severe justice upon all the evils of the world.

In the creation of all things the power of God was most especially manifested: in the government of the world doth His wisdom most appear in the redemption of mankind His mercy is most transparent and in the day of judgment shall His justice most eminently shew forth and exercise its strict and

sures.

severest mea

2. Sad and dismal is the sentence that upon this great day shall pass upon all such whose faith hath not, according to ability and opportunity, been fruitful in the good works of charity: "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire:

8 Psalm xix. 12.

i Prov. xvi. 4.

for I was an hungered, and, ye gave Me no meat."

And if these shall be eternally damned, who have not given of their own goods for the relief of others: what shall become of the oppressor, the extortioner, the cheater, the thief, and of every one who either by force or fraud, publicly or secretly, hath either taken or detained what of right belongs unto others? Surely, if the one shall go, the other shall be driven, hurried with a vengeance into everlasting fire.

3. Great, inconceivably great, shall be the perplexity and anguish of the impenitent sinner in this great day; beholding (as Anselm meditates) on the one side his sins accusing him, and on the other the strict and impartial justice of Heaven ready to pass sentence upon him seeing below him the mouth of hell gaping to devour him; and above him an angry Judge condemning him to that place of horror: feeling within an accusing conscience tormenting him, and without the whole world in consuming flames: "and if the righteous shall scarcely be saved, where shall the Mat. xxv. 41, 42.

ungodly and sinner appear?" or where shall he hide himself that he may not appear? For any wicked one to lie hidden on that day is impossible, and to appear is dreadful and intolerable.

St. Chrysostom saith, that the very sight of an angry Judge shall be then more insupportable than a thousand hells.

4. This is that dismal day foretold by our Lord Himself, wherein they shall say, "Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

"Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us."

"And hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

"For the great day of His wrath is come: and who shall be able to stand" ?"

Woe is me that I have sinned: woe, woe is me that I have offended this great and terrible Judge of all the world: but as is His Majesty, so is His Mercy great and wonderful.

Have mercy upon me, O

m Luke xxiii. 29, 30.

III.

The day of judgment is not only of all days the most dreadful, but the most joyful also.

The righteous, and the holy, and the just, shall appear in glorified bodies, encircled with the shining rays of excessive light: but the wicked in bodies, or carcasses rather, both hideous and loathsome.

To the impenitent and wicked of the world, it is a day of the greatest terror; but to the holy and humble of heart and life, a day of jubilee and greatest joy: a day of shame and confusion to the one, of glory and consolation to the other.

How great then shall be the glory of the holy Christian; and how great the shame of infidelity and

• Psalm cxli. 4.

"To them who by patient continuing in well doing, do seek for glory, and honour, and immortality: eternal life.

"But to them who are contentious, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness: indignation and wrath,

| "Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil: of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile.

"But glory, honour and peace, to every man that worketh good.

"For there is no respect of persons with God"."

What heart can worthily think of these things, without trembling and great astonishment, if not purified and sincerely devoted to the service of God?

"Teach me, O Lord, Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth: O knit my heart unto Thee, that I may fear Thy name:" fear to offend

Thee, the great and righteous Judge of the world, in the least particular of thought or desire, of word or of deed.

O Lord, who never failest to help and govern them whom Thou dost bring up in Thy stedfast fear and love: keep us, we beseech Thee, under the protection of Thy good Providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of Thy Holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

IV.

"When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith upon the earth"?" All we who are called Christians, profess to believe both the certain coming of Christ to judgment, and the uncertainty of the time that we must all stand before His dreadful tribunal, and receive every man according to his works: but this is generally a dead faith, it quickens not the affections, it excites not to such holy conscientious actions, as the firm and cordial belief of all this does imply and command; and so will prove as dangerous to the souls of such believers, as if they had no faith at all.

With most of men, the judgments of God, and all the amazing concerns of eternity, are no more but words which they hear; they have but very narrow, very shallow and dark conceptions of them; they understand not their great astonishing importance, and are not therefore deeply affected therewith to become wise unto salvation.

O raise up thy stupid soul, I do here summon thee, whosoever thou art that readest these Meditations; and thou art hereby summoned, particularly as by name, to make thy appearance at this general assizes to be held at the great and last day, and there to give an account of every passage through thy whole life; which shall be as strictly and throughly sifted and examined, as if there were none but thyself to be tried, as if no cause but thine alone were to be heard.

Eja charissime - - Consider, my dear Christian brother, out of what danger thou mayest now deliver thyself, and from what great fear thou mayest be freed, if now thou dost alway stand in awe and sin not; if now thou beest alway suspectful

of death, and solicitous of the judgment to comes.

Prepare then, prepare thyself now; now that thou hast time and leisure, prepare thyself for that great day; for upon thy trial then depends either thy everlasting well-being, or miserable undoing for ever. Now then cast up thy accounts carefully; examine, try, and judge thyselft; confess thy manifold amisses; humble thyself greatly under the mighty haud of God"; appease the wrath of the great Judge of the world, by prayers and tears, and all the sacred offices and acts of true repentance, by alms, and offerings, and fastings often2; and, in a word, by all the kinds of those "spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable unto God, through Jesus Christa."

Happy are those servants, whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find upon their watch, awaiting His coming, with "their loins girt," their lusts restrained, and their " lamps burning :" the light of the holy and true faith flaming by divine love, and shining through all the actions of their life: "that others seeing their good works, may glorify God the Father of Heaven"."

"I will stand upon my watch," to guard the innocency of my soul: I will watch and also pray, that I fall not into the snare of