The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. Illustrated in a sermon

1. The mutual concerns of ministers and their people are of the greatest importance.

The Scripture declares, that God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. It is fit that all the concerns, and all the behaviour of mankind, both public and private, should be brought at last before God's tribunal, and finally determined by an infallible Judge▪ But it is especially requisite that it should be thus, as to affairs of very great importance.

Now the mutual concerns of a Christian minister and his church and congregation, are of the vastest importance: in many respects▪ of much greater moment than the temporal concerns of the greatest earthly monarchs, and their kingdoms or empires. It is of vast consequence how ministers discharge their office, and conduct themselves towards their people in the ⟨p. 113⟩work of the ministry, and in affairs appertaining to it. It is also a matter of vast importance, how a people receive and entertain a faithful minister of Christ, and what improvement they make of his ministry. These things have a more immediate and direct respect to the great and last end for which man was made, and the eternal welfare of mankind, than any of the temporal concerns of men, whether public or private. And therefore it is especially fit that these affairs should be brought into judgment, and openly determined and settled in truth and righteousness; and that to this end, ministers and their people should meet together before the omniscient and infallible Judge.