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

USE II. Of terror to all unbelievers. This may serve to awaken a secure generation, a world lying in wickedness, as if they were never to be called to an account for it; and slighting the Mediator, as if he were not to judge them. Ah! how few have the lively impressions of the judgment to come! most men live, as if what is said of it, from the word, were but idle tales. The profane lives of many, speak the thoughts of it to be far from their hearts, and in very deed make a mock of it before the world, saying, in effect, Where is the promise of his coming? The hypocrisy of others, who blind the eyes of the world with a splendid profession, being in appearance Christ's sheep, while they are indeed the devil's goats, is an evidence, that the great separation of the sheep from the goats is very little laid to heart. How do many indulge themselves in secret wickedness, of which they would be ashamed before witnesses: not considering that their most secret thoughts and actions will, at that day, be discovered, before the great congregation! how eagerly are mens hearts set on the world, as if it were to be their everlasting habitation! the solemn assemblies, and public ordinances, wherein the Judge is upon a transaction of peace with the criminals, are undervalued: mens heart, will swim like feathers in the waters of the sanctuary, that will sink, like stones, to the bottom, in cares of this life: they will be very serious in trifles of this world, and trifle in the most serious and weighty things of another world. But O! consider the day that is approaching, in which Christ shall come to judgment; the world shall be summoned, by the sound of the last trumpet, to compear before his tribunal. The Judge shall sit on his throne, and all nations shall be si•t•d before him; the separation shall be made betwixt the godly and the wicked, the books opened, and the dead judged out of them, one party shall be adjudged to everlasting life, and the other to everlasting fire, according to their works.

It would be a sight of admirable curiosity, if thou couldst wrap up thyself in some dark cloud, or hide thyself in the cleft of some high rock, from whence thou mightest espy wicked kings, princes, judges, and great ones of the earth, rising out of their marble tombs, and brought to the bar, to answer for all their cruelty, injustice,