ON THE LAST GENERAL JUDGMENT.
On the Reasons for the Last Judgment.
TWENTY-SECOND SERMON.
ON THE FIRST REASON FOR THE LAST JUDGMENT.
Subject.
There must necessarily be a day of general judgment; first, that God may make good in the sight of the whole world His lessened honor; secondly, that God may publicly justify His now incomprehensible Providence.—Preached on the eighth Sunday after Pentecost.
Text.
Redde rationem villicationis tuæ.—Luke xvi. 2.
“Give an account of thy stewardship.”
Introduction.
These very words shall be said to all of us when the last trumpet shall resound in the graves of all, with the words, “Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment.” Then shall the Judge say to each one of us in particular: O man, give an account of thy stewardship: tell Me how thou hast lived, what thou hast thought, said, and done all the time thou hast spent in the world. But, we might ask with reason, is it not an article of faith that every man shall be judged immediately after death, and sent into eternal glory or eternal torments? Why then should men appear again to hear another sentence? Is not the first one good and just enough, as it is pronounced by an infallible Judge? Not a doubt of it! What is, then, the object of a new examination and judgment? Will the last judgment perhaps make some change
