Eead IV. The ·Con:ing ofJefru Chrifi the Judg!. ;;7 •in every man, where confcience is accufer, witnef.~, and Judge, binding ,over th.e ·fioner to the _judgment of G~d. This fills tlae mofl:' pro6:gate wre·tches Wlth horror, and Ill· wardly ft-iogs them, upon .the con~miffion of foJ?e a.ttrocious <crime ; 'in effeCt .fummomng them to anfwer for 1t before ·the judge of, the 'quick and dead. Ang this it cloth~ eve11 when tlie crime is fecret, and hid from the eyes of the -world. It reacheth thofe whom the laws at men cannot -re~ch1 becaufe of their pewer or craft. When 'men have fiJed from the judgment of their fe!Jow-creatu,res; yet, go where they will, coofcience, as the fuprerrie Judge's officer, ·flill keeps hold of them, re.ferving them in its chains to the Judgment of the great day. And whether they efcape p.u– ,flifhment from men, or fall by the h~nd of ptlblic jufiice, \vhcn they perceive death's approach, they hear from withia (,f this after reckoning; being confi:rained to !learken the.reto ,jn thefe the moft ferioas minutes of their lives. If there be !ome, in whom nothing of this deth appear, we have no ·!l'ore ground thence to condude agai~fi it, than we have t~ -concluJe, that becaufe fome meo do not groan, ther.efore -theyhan.-rro-pain; or that dying is a merejefl:, becaufe there h.we been who have feemed to make Iiale elfe of it. A good Jace may be .put upon an ·ill -confcience: and the more hope– ,Jefs meos cafe is, t·hev ·re:ckon it the more their intere11 te .make no refleCtions o~ the-ir fiate and cafe. But every on~ ~ho will confult 'himfdf ferioufiy, lhall1i~d in himfelf.the ..witnefs to the judgment to co.me. Even the Heither.s want- _ ed not a notion of itt though mixed wit11 fictions of theil· ·.own. Hence, though fome o.f the Athenians,- when they ·heard of the refurreflion of the dead, mocked, Acts xvii 3;. yet there is oo account of their mocking, when they h.ea.r~ .of thegeneral j udg1Nent., ver. 3r. H. For e-xplic-ation, the following particulars may ferve to give fome vie•,rJ of the ·nature and tranfactions of that ·great day. '· . Firfi, God !hall judge the world by J~fus Chrifl:. lie "'JJtll jttdge the world in ri,5hteouj'ne/r, ·by that man wham he hat!J .()rdaimd, Atls xvii. 3r. The i>falmifi tells us, tbat Cod it Judge him.fel/, PfaL J. 6. The holy bleffedTrinity, Fdther, s.on, and ~~ly G1 wfl, is Judge, in refpetl: of judicial au ·ho– nty, domtmon, aDd power: but the S-on incunate i~ th~ f' f jud&e,
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