Think Well On't/Day 12
THE TWELFTH DAY.
On the last sentence of the good and bad.
CONSIDER, how this great trial shall be concluded by a final definitive sentence in favour of the just, and for the condemnation of the wicked. And first, the Sovereign Judge, turning himself towards his elect, with a most sweet and amiable countenance, shall invite them into the happy mansions of everlasting bliss: Come ye blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world: Mat. xxv. O happy invitation! Happy, thrice happy they, that shall be found worthy to hear that comfortable sentence! What unspeakable satisfaction, what torrents of joy and pleasure will the hearing of it give to those blessed creatures! I am filled with joy, says the royal prophet, at the happy tidings which I have heard; we are to enter into the house of the Lord: Ps. cxxi. But, Oh! what envy, what rage and malice will the reprobate feel at the hearing of this invitation, when they shall see several of their acquaintance called to take possession of that eternal kingdom, which they might also have so easily purchased; but by their own folly and stupidity, have blindly exchanged it for the flames of hell.
2. Consider, and ponder at leisure upon this happy sentence: Come, says the Judge, ye blessed of my Father, &c. Come from the vale of tears where, for a little while, you have been tried and afflicted by the appointment of my providence, to the kingdom of never-ending joys; where grief and sorrow will be no more. Come from the place of banishment, where for a time you have sighed and groaned at a distance from your heavenly country, to your everlasting home, where you shall meet with all that your heart can desire to complete your happiness; where you shall be for ever inebriated by the plenty of my house, and drink for ever at the fountain of life: arise, my beloved, the winter is now past, the floods and storms are over, arise and come. O universal and eternal blessings! How my poor soul contemns all other happiness, in hopes of having a share one day in this blessed sentence!
3. Consider, how the great Judge, after having invited the just to his glorious kingdom, turning himself towards the wicked on his left hand, with fire in his eyes and terror in his countenance, shall thunder out against them the dreadful sentence of their eternal doom in these words: go from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Christian souls, weigh well every word of this dismal sentence. Go for ever from me, and from the joys of my kingdom. O terrible excommunication! O cruel divorce! O eternal banishment! Who can express, who can conceive what it is to be for ever separated from our God, our first beginning and last end, our great and sovereign good! Ah! wretches, who make so little now of losing your God by mortal sin, what will you then think when you shall be sentenced to this eternal banishment from him, doomed to seek him for all eternity, and yet, never to meet with him in any of his attributes, only in his avenging justice, the weight of which you shall feel for ever. But take notice whither you are to go, when you go from your God. Alas! into everlasting fire, there to lead an ever-dying life, there to endure a never-ending death, in the company of the devil and his angels; to whom you made yourselves slaves, and who shall now, without control, exercise forever their tyranny over you.
4. Consider that dreadful and universal curse which this just but dismal sentence involves. Go from me, ye cursed, says the Sovereign Judge: as if he was to say: go, depart from me, but let my curse go with you. I would have given you my blessing, but you would not have it; a curse you chose, and a curse shall be your everlasting inheritance. It shall stick close to you like a garment for all eternity; it shall enter into your very bowels, and search into the very marrow of your bones. A curse upon your eyes, never to see the least glimpse of comfortable light: a curse upon your ears, to be entertained for all eternity with frightful shrieks and groans: a curse on your taste, to be for ever imbittered with the gall of dragons: a curse on your smell, to be always tormented with the noisome stench of the pit of hell: a curse on your feeling and on all the members of your body, to burn and never consume in that fire which shall never be quenched: a curse upon your understanding, never to be illustrated with any ray of truth: a curse on your memory, to be always revolving in the bitterness of a late and fruitless repentance, the shortness and vanity of past pleasures: a curse upon the imagination, ever representing present and future miseries: a curse upon the will, obstinate in evil, to be torn in pieces with a thousand violent, and, withal, opposite desires, and unable to accomplish any of them: a curse, in fine, upon the whole soul, to be a hell to itself for all eternity! Good God! let it never be our misfortune to incur this dreadful curse!
5. Consider, how, after sentence is given, the elect shall enter without delay upon the possession of that everlasting kingdom which God has prepared for those that serve him, where sorrow can have no place, and joy no end. But as for the wicked, the earth shall immediately open and swallow them all down at once, with the devils who seduced them, into the bottomless pit, and the gate shall be shut, never, never more to be opened. This is the end of all worldly pride: this is the end of all carnal pleasure. Oh! how horrid a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God! Heb. x. 31.