Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

IX. Now the saints having received their own sentence, they shall judge the world, 1 Cor. vi. 2. This was not fulfilled, when the empire became Christian, and Christians were made magistrates. No, the Psalmist tells us, This hour have all the saints, Psal cxlix. 9. And the Apostle in the forecited place, adds, And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Ver. 3. Know ye not that we shall judge angels? Being called, they come to receive their kingdom, in the view of angels and men: they go, as it were, from the bar to the throne, To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me on my throne, Rev iii 21. They shall not only judge the world, in Christ their head, by way of communion with him; by their works compared with these of the ungodly; or, by way of testimony against them: but they shall be assessors to Jesus Christ the Judge, giving their voice against them, consenting to his judgment as just, and saying Amen, to the doom pronounced against all the ungodly: as is said of the saints, upon the judgment of the great whore, Rev. xix. 1, 2. Hallelujah, for true and righteous are his judgments. Thus the upright shall have dominion over them, in the morning, of the resurrection Psal. xlix. 14. Then, and not till then, shall that fully be accomplished, which ye may read, Psal. cxlix. 6, 7, 8, 9. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people,—this honour have all his saints. O! what a strange turn of affairs, will appear here. what an astonishing sight will it be, to see wicked churchmen and statesmen standing as criminals before the saints, whom sometimes they condemned as heretics, rebels and traitors! to see men of riches and power stand pale-faced before these whom they oppressed! to see the mocker stand trembling before these he mocked: the worldly-wise man before these whom he accounted fools! then shall the despised faces of the saints be dreadful faces to the wicked: and those who sometimes were the song of the drunkards, shall then be a terror to them All wrongs must be righted at length, and every one set in his proper place.