CONTENTS TO Page. Doom's-day Book; or, Christ's Advent to Judgment For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence SERMON I. ADVENT SUNDAY. DOOMS-DAY BOOK; OR, CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 2 COR. v. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of CHRIST, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. VIRTUE and vice are so essentially distinguished, and the distinction is so necessary to be observed in order to the well being of men in private and in societies, that to divide them in themselves, and to separate them by sufficient notices, and to distinguish them by rewards, hath been designed by all laws, by the sayings of wise men, by the order of things, by their proportions to good or evil; and the expectations of men have been framed accordingly: that virtue may have a proper seat in the will and in the affections, and may become amiable by its own excellency and its appendant blessing; and that vice may be as natural an enemy to a man, as a wolf to the lamb, and as darkness to light; destructive of its being, and a contradiction of its nature. But it is not enough that all the world hath armed itself against vice, and, by all that is wise and sober among men, hath taken the part of virtue, adorning VOL. I. 2 it with glorious appellatives, encouraging it by rewards, entertaining it by sweetness, and commanding it by edicts, fortifying it with defensatives, and twining with it in all artificial compliances; all this is short of man's necessity for this will, in all modest men, secure their actions in theatres and high-ways, in markets and churches, before the eye of judges, and in the society of witnesses: but the actions of closets and chambers, the designs and thoughts of men, their discourses in dark places, and the actions of retirements and of the night, are left indifferent to virtue or to vice; and of these, as man can take no cognizance, so he can make no coercitive; and therefore above one half of human actions is by the laws of man left unregarded and unprovided for. And besides this, there are some men who are bigger than laws, and some are bigger than judges, and some judges have lessened themselves by fear and cowardice, by bribery and flattery, by iniquity and compliance; and where they have not, yet they have notices but of few causes: and there are some sins so popular and universal, that to punish them is either impossible or intolerable; and to question such, would betray the weakness of the publick rods and axes, and represent the sinner to be stronger than the power that is appointed to be his bridle. And after all this, we find sinners so prosperous that they escape, so potent that they fear not; and sin is made safe when it grows great, -Facere omnia sæve * Non impune licet, nisi dum facis and innocence is oppressed, and the poor cries, and he hath no helper, and he is oppressed, and he wants * -Short is the triumph of injustice, soon, a patron. And for these and many other concurrent causes, if you reckon all the causes that come before all the judicatories of the world, though the litigious are too many, and the matters of instance are intricate and numerous, yet the personal and criminal are so few, that of two thousand sins that cry aloud to God for vengeance, scarce two are noted by the publick eye, and chastised by the hand of justice. It must follow from hence, that it is but reasonable, for the interest of virtue and the necessities of the world, that the private should be judged, and virtue should be tied upon the spirit, and the poor should be relieved, and the oppressed should appeal, and the noise of widows should be heard, and the saints should stand upright, and the cause that was ill judged should be judged over again, and tyrants should be called to account, and our thoughts should be examined, and our secret actions viewed on all sides, and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally. And therefore God hath so ordained it, that there shall be a day of doom, wherein all that are let alone by men shall be questioned by God, and every word and every action shall receive its just recompense of reward. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Τα ίδια του σωματος; So it is in the best copies, not τα δια, the things done in the body, so we commonly read it; the things proper or due to the body, so the expression is more apt and proper; for not only what is done als by the body, but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition, the acts of reflection and choice, acts of self-love and admiration, and whatever else can be supposed the be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit, is to be ac |