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shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other," Matt. xxiv. 31; for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is our gathering together unto him.

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Thirdly; when those who are to be judged are brought before the judgment-seat of Christ, all their actions shall appear." "He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts," 1 Cor. iv. 5. He will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil," Eccles. xii. 14. To this end, in the vision of Daniel, when" the judgment was set, the books were opened;" and in that of St. John, "the books were opened; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works," Dan. vii. 10; Rev. xx. 12.

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Fourthly; after the manifestation of all their actions, there followeth a definitive sentence passed upon all their persons, according to those actions, which is the fundamental and essential consideration of this judgment; the sentence of absolution, in these words expressed, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," the sentence of condemnation in this manner, 66 Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels," Matt. xxv. 34, 41.

Lastly; after the promulgation of the sentence, followeth the execution; as it is written, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Thus appeareth Christ's majesty by sitting on the throne; his authority, by convening all before him; his knowledge and wisdom, by opening all secrets, revealing all actions, discerning all inclinations; his justice, in condemning sinners; his mercy, in absolving believers, his power, in the execution of his sentence. And thus the Son of Man shall come to judge, which is the last particular subservient to the third consideration of this Article. "The fourth and last consideration is, what is the object of this action; who are the persons which shall appear before that Judge, and receive their sentence from him;

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what is the latitude of that expression, the quick and the dead. The phrase itself is delivered several times in the scriptures, and that upon the same occasion; for Christ was "ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead," and so his commission extendeth to both: he "is ready to judge the quick and the dead;" his resolution reacheth to each; and as he is ordained and ready, so "shall he judge the quick and the dead;" the execution excludeth neither, Acts x. 42; 1 Pet. iv. 5; 2 Tim. iv. 1. But although it be the scripture language, and therefore certainly true; yet there is some ambiguity in the phrase, and therefore the intended sense not evident.

The Holy Ghost speaketh of death in several notions which makes the quick and the dead capable of several interpretations. Because after death the soul doth live, and the body only remaineth dead; therefore some have understood the souls of men by the quick, and their bodies by the dead; and then the meaning will be this, that Christ shall come to judge immediately upon the resurrection, when the souls which were preserved alive shall be joined to the bodies which were once dead; and so men shall be judged entirely both in body and soul, for all those actions which the soul committed in the body. Now though this be a truth, that men shall be judged when their souls and bodies are united; though they shall be judged according to those works which their souls have acted in their bodies; yet this is not to be acknowledged as the interpretation of this article, for two reasons; first, because it is not certain that all men shall die, at least a proper death, so that their bodies shall be left any time without their souls; secondly, because this is not a distinction of the parts of man, but of the persons of

men.

Again; because the scripture often mentioneth a death in trespasses and sins, and a living unto righteousness, others have conceived by the quick to be understood the just, and by the dead the unjust; so that Christ shall judge the quick, that is the just, by a sentence of absolution; and the dead, that is the unjust, by a sentence of condemnation. But though the dead be sometimes taken for sinners, and the living for the righteous, though it be true that Christ shall judge them both; yet it is not pro

bable that in this particular they should be taken in a figurative or metaphorical sense, because there is no adjunct giving any such intimation, and because the literal sense affordeth a fair explication; farther yet, because the scripture in the same particular naming the quick and the dead sufficiently teacheth us that it is to be understood of a corporeal death: "Whether we live or die," saith the apostle, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living," Rom. xiv. 9.

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Thirdly; therefore by the dead are understood all those who ever died before the time of Christ's coming to judg ment, and by the quick such as shall be then alive; so that the quick and the dead, literally taken, are considered in relation to the time of Christ's coming; at which time there shall be a generation living upon the face of the earth, and before which time all the generations pasi sed since the creation of the world shall be numbered among the dead. And this undoubtedly is the proper and literal sense of the Article, that Christ shall come to judge, not only those who shall be alive upon the earth at his appearing, but also all such as have lived and died before. None shall be then judged while they are dead: whosoever stand before the judgment-seat shall appear alive; but those who never died, shall be judged as they were alive; those that were dead before, that they may be judged, shall rise to life. He shall judge therefore the quick, that is those who shall be then alive when he cometh; and he shall judge the dead, that is those who at the same time shall be raised from the dead. daki

The only doubt remaining in this interpretation is, whether those that shall be found alive when our Saviour cometh, shall still so continue till they come to judgment; or upon his first appearance they shall die, and after death revive, and so, together with all those who rise out of their graves, appear before the judgment-seat? The consideration of our mortality, and the cause thereof, (that it is appointed for all men once to die, in that death hath passed upon all"), might persuade us that the last gefleration of mankind should taste of death, as well as all the rest that went before it; and therefore it hath been thought, especially of late, that those whom Christ at his

coming finds alive, shall immediately die; and after a sudden and universal expiration, shall be restored to life again, and joined with the rest whom the graves shall render, that all may be partakers of the resurrection.ot

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But the apostle's description of the last day mentioneth no such kind of death, yea rather excludeth it. For "we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord," 1 Thes. iv. 15. In which words, they" which remain unto the coming of the Lord," are not said to die or to rise from the dead, but are distinguished from those which are asleep and rise first; yea, being alive, are caught up together with them, having not tasted death.

The same is farther confirmed by the same apostle, saying, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed," I Cor. xv. 51. Which being added to the former, putteth this doctrine out of question; for the living who remain at the coming of Christ are opposed to them who are asleep, and the opposition consists in this, that they shall not sleep; which sleep is not opposed to a long death, but to death itself, as it followeth," the dead shall be raised incorruptible," and we, who shall not sleep, "shall be changed; so that their mutation shall be unto them as a resurrection. And the collation of these two scriptures maketh up this conclusion so manifestly, that I conceive no man had ever doubted or questioned the truth of it, had they not first differed in the reading of the text.

Wherefore seeing the place to the Thessalonians sufficiently proves it of itself, seeing that to the Corinthians, as we read it, invincibly confirmeth the same truth, I conclude that the living, when Christ shall come, are properly distinguished from all those who die before his coming; because death itself hath passed upon the one, and only a change different from death shall pass upon

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the other; and so conceive that Christ is called the Lord and Judge of the quick and dead, in reference at least to this expression of the Creed. For although it be true of the living of any age to say that Christ is Lord and Judge of them and of the dead, yet in the next age they are not the living but the dead whom Christ shall come to judge, and consequently no one generation but the last can be the quick whom he shall judge. As therefore to the interpretation of this Article, I take that distinction to be necessary, that in the end of the world all the generations dead shall be revived, and the present generation living so continued, and Christ shall gather them all to his tribunal seat, and so shall truly come to judge both the quick and the dead.

To believe a universal judgment to come is necessary; first, to prevent the dangerous doubts arising against the ruling of the world by the providence of God; that old rock of offence upon which so many souls have suffered shipwreck. That which made the prophet David confess, his "feet were almost gone," his " steps had well nigh slipped," hath hurried multitudes of men to eternal perdition, Ps. lxxiii. 2. The conspicuous prosperity of the wicked, and apparent miseries of the righteous; the frequent persecutions of virtue, and eminent rewards of vice; the sweet and quiet departures often attending upon the most dissolute, and horrid tortures putting a period to the most religious, lives, have raised a strong temptation of doubt and mistrust, whether there be a God that judgeth the earth. Nor is there any thing in this life considered alone, which can give the least rational satisfaction in this temptation. Except there be a life to come after such a death as we daily see, except in that life there be rewards and punishments otherwise dispensed than here they are, how can we ground any acknowledgment of an overruling justice? That there fore we may be assured that God who sitteth in heaven ruleth over all the earth, that a divine and most holy providence disposeth and dispenseth all things here be low; it is absolutely necessary to believe and profess, that a just and exact retribution is deferred, that a due and proportionable dispensation of rewards and punish

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