Sermons upon death and eternal judgment

2. Upon the account of the immense Difficulty, no mere Creature is able to discharge it. To judg the World, includes two things. 1. To pass a righteous and irrevocable Judgment upon Men for all things done in this Life. 2. The actual execution of the Sentence. And for this no less than infinite Wisdom, and infinite Power are necessary. If a select number of Angels of the highest Order were deputed, yet they could not manage the judicial trial of one Man. For besides the innumerable acts and omissions in one Life, the secrets of the Heart, from whence the guilt or goodness of Moral Actions is principally derived, are not open to them. He alone that discerns all things, can require an account of all.

2. The Son of Man is invested with this High Office as the Reward of his Sufferings. We must distinguish between the essential and economical Power of Christ. The Son of God, considered in his Divine Nature, has an original Power of Judgment equal with the Father, but considered as Mediator, has a Power by delegation. In the quality of the Son of Man, he is inferior in dignity to the Father: The Apostle declares this in that scale of Subordination, of the Creatures to Believers, and of Believers to Christ, and of Christ to God. All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. And observing the beautiful Order that arises from the superiority and dependence between things, he saith, The Head of every Man is Christ, and ⟨p. 16⟩the Head of the Woman is the Man, and the Head of Christ is God. Now this Power by Commission was conferred upon him as the Reward of his Sufferings. The Apostle expressly declares it, that Christ being in the Form of God, and without any usurpation truly equal to him in Divine Perfections and Majesty, humbled himself, and came obedient to the Death of the Cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a Name above every Name: that at the Name of Jesus every Knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in Earth, and things under the Earth; and that every Tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father. His victorious Sufferings are the Titles of his Triumphs, his being so ignominiously depressed and condemned by Men, is the just reason of