And must we meet this glorious, this tremendous Judge of heaven and earth? We must. Every eye shall see him; every knee shall bow to him; every ear shall be witness to his decisive sentence; and every tongue confess, either with cheerful and voluntary acknowledgment, or with forced and irresistible conviction, that he is God. The people of his grace shall see him, and kindle into rapture at the sight; shall meet him, and find their heaven of heavens in the interview. They shall meet him, to grace his triumphs, and adorn his mediatorial crown, as jewels, of an immense purchase, of infinite value, of unfading lustre. The day of Messiah’s second appearing will be his grand coronation day; whereon, in the presence of admiring and applauding millions, the crown of salvation, that crown of crowns, shall be unanimously, publicly, and solemnly placed on the head of King Jesus; and every voice shall shout, Worthy is the Lamb. Oh! that each of us may bear some humble part in that immortal song! some humble office in that great solemnity!
But who, among the wicked, may abide the day of his coming; and who shall stand, when he appeareth? Mal. iii. 2. For behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the PROUD, yea, and all that DO WICKEDLY, shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. Mal. iv. 1. O what a meeting will take place between the Judge, and those, who once refused to acknowledge him as their Saviour and their King! He will meet them as a bear bereaved of her whelps, and devour them as a lion; Hos. xiii. 8; and they shall meet him, as the briers and thorns, the flame that consumeth them. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living GOD. In the character of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, his advent will be tremendous: but it is the wrath of the Lamb, of the once-wounded, rejected, persecuted, blasphemed, and injured Lamb, that will be most insufferably dreadful; and it is from that, they will earnestly solicit mountains and rocks to hide them, as a shelter from his indignation. Rev. vi. 16. But, rocks and mountains will be no veil from his all-seeing eye; no covert from his Almighty arm; no obstruction to the shafts of his vengeance. He will find them out though they make their bed in hell; will pursue and overtake them, though they take the wings of the morning, and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth or sea; and bring them down, though they make their nest in the stars. And who can conceive how fearful that meeting must be, when the parties are, rebellious mortals and a holy God;—potsherds of the earth, and the Creator of all worlds! worms, and Omnipotence!
Since, then, there will be a certain and swiftly approaching interview between God and sinners, at the solemn hour of death; and a more awful and decisive one, at the general assize: O how deeply incumbent it is upon all, to prepare for both! But, are you ready? Should death call, or God-Messiah descend to judgment; would you be found in circumstances of security and preparation? Ask your hearts. Are there no guilty misgivings there? Ask your lives. Are they such as correspond with the temper of persons, looking out for, and hastening unto, the coming of the day of God? Ask conscience. Sprinkled from the evil of guilt by the blood of Christ, does it witness to your salvation? or loaded with sin, and fraught with pollution, does it proclaim you the subject of misery, and the heir of hell, and bear a loud testimony to your condemnation? Ask the word of God. Will your hearts and lives bear to be tried by that touchstone of truth? If you profess Christianity; are you Bible Christians? If you think you are sound in the truth; will you bear to be probed? If you shrink from this examination; is there not cause to fear, that there is some latent sore you wish to conceal? some morbid part, you are unwilling to be touched even with a gentle hand, though it is festering deep, and spreading wide, and threatens death everlasting? You may think you are prepared, when you are not. The thought, in such a case, arises from a spiritual mortification, that deadens the conscience, and deprives it of feeling. And a supposition of safety, where there is no scriptural ground to warrant it, is only the reverie of a sick man, or the chimera of one that dreameth. That you may not be deceived, or flattered, in a point of such vast moment; let us now consider,
2. What kind of preparation it is incumbent upon sinners to make, in the prospect of an interview with God at death, and in the day of judgment.
I. A gracious preparation; or, a preparation through the inherent efficacy, and transforming influence of divine grace. The nature of man is so depraved, and all the faculties of the soul are so alienated from the life of God, that a divine and supernatural power is absolutely requisite to the restoration of that image, which sin effaced; to the recovery of that happiness, which man, as a transgressor, has forfeited; to the implantation of those fruits of righteousness, which were eradicated by the fall; and to the possession of that divine and gracious “thing, which BY NATURE man CANNOT HAVE.” [353] For, “the condition of man, after the fall of Adam, is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the GRACE of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.” Thus speaks Article X. “Of free will.” And the XIIIth is equally strong and express. “Works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith.”
It may be urged, that “these are the words of fallible men.” A poor evasive plea this. For though the words be the composition of fallible men, yet the sentiments are the truths of the infallible God: for the scriptures declare that the preparation of the heart in man is of the Lord; Prov. xvi. 1. See also I Chron. xxix. 18; that we must be born again, John, iii. 7; that being dead in trespasses and sins, we must be quickened by God, Ephes. ii. 1; that no man can come unto Christ, except the Father DRAW him, John, vi. 44; that, if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his, Rom. viii. 9; that it is God who worketh in us, to will and to do of his good pleasure, Phil. xxii. 13; and that, without (or χωρις severed from) Christ we can do nothing, but sin, and err. John, xv. 5. The nature of man, since the fall, is depraved: nothing but grace can rectify and renew it. It is disordered: grace alone provides a remedy. It is polluted: its innate defilement is cleansed by grace. It is unholy: the grace of God, which bringeth present salvation, teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Titus, iii. 12. It is debased by sin: nothing can ennoble or exalt it, but all-sufficient grace. It is weak and impotent: grace alone can strengthen and fortify it against temptation. It is rebellious: grace controls and captivates its most stubborn opposition, and makes its powers passive, and flexible. Human nature is barren: and nothing but all-conquering grace can subdue its sterility. It is grace that breaks up the fallow ground; softens the soil; sows the seed; cherishes it, when sown; makes it spring; brings it to maturity; blesses it with sunshines and showers; defends it from nipping frosts and scorching heat; and crowns the once-barren and stubborn soil with a rich harvest of fruit. It is grace that makes that wonderful change, so beautifully described in Isa. xxxv. 1–9. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them: and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose: it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing.—For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land, springs of water: in the habitation of dragons (fierce, untamed, impoisoning lusts, that make a carnal mind to resemble the haunt of venomous beasts) where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of Holiness.
Such is that gracious work which renews the soul, and makes it meet for a meeting with God; which makes all old things pass away and every thing become new; 2 Cor. v. 7; and without which, man is indisposed to the ways of righteousness, and unfit to perform any thing acceptable to God. O that you may be enabled to determine whether or not this work has been wrought in you! Trust not to poor, naked morality; that meagre, superficial thing, which unsanctified immoral Pharisees make their all. Morality only skins over the wound; but grace effects a radical cure. Morality strikes at outward branches; but grace alone can lay the axe to the root of corruption. Morality may give a specious white-washing to a sepulchre, or a gilded varnish to a statue; but grace alone can cleanse from inward foulness, turn rottenness and death into life and purity, and convert dead men’s bones into living members of Christ. Morality confines its attention only to the cleansing of the streams: but grace, like Elisha’s wonder-working cruse of salt, goes up to the springs of water, and pours its primary, its salutary, influence there. 2 Kings, ii. 20, 21. Morality gives the appearance only of that, of which grace makes the reality. Morality assumes the name of religion; but grace forms its nature. Morality may make an useful member of society, but grace alone can make a faithful member of Christ. Human power can accomplish a doctrinal speculatist, or constitute a pharisaical formalist; but God that made the world, must make a Christian.
2. The preparation requisite, is such, as demands the solemn and unreserved dedication of the heart and life to the service and honor of God; or such a devotion of all we have and are, to his glory, as bespeaks the purity of the principles by which we are to be governed; the power and sincerity of the motives, by which we are to be actuated; and the great importance of the end we are to have in view.
God has an indisputable right to all we possess; because all we have is the effect of his power, and the result of his unmerited bounty. The heart is more especially his claim; because he first made it himself, and, when fallen, redeemed it with the blood of his Son. My Son give me thy heart, Prov. xxiii. 26, is therefore his most reasonable and gracious demand. To give it to any thing else, save to its original Proprietor and Redeemer, is black ingratitude, is palpable idolatry: and to pretend devotion, when the heart is withheld, is hypocrisy and dissimulation. Give God any thing, and keep back the heart, and you virtually give him nothing, or present him with an abomination. He is a Spirit, and they who worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth. John, iv. 24. The most tedious round of duties, the most punctual and ceremonious attendance upon forms, are but so many elaborate modes of affronting Jehovah, if the heart be not right with God; and so many delusive methods to conceal a latent malady, which is open to the eye of omniscience, as the foulest insincerity, and the rankest pride. They who honor the Lord with lip-service, or draw nigh to him in mere formality, are they who trust in lying words and espouse a delusion; especially when crying out, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. Jer. vii. 4.
But how few consider this with becoming seriousness and attention! Hurried on in the circle of dissipation, and driven impetuously forward by the torrent of popular example, multitudes possess neither leisure nor inclination, to examine the grounds of their profession, or to compare their hearts and lives with the word of God. As if religion had nothing to do with the heart, they only profess with their lips, what, alas! is strongly reprobated by the current of their affections and the tenor of their lives. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, are their favorite idols: and to sacrifice to these, not to the Lord of Hosts, is the wish, the desire, the ultimate resolution of their hearts. To such, an inspired Apostle says, Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not, that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. James, iv. 4. They attend public worship; but while they are visible in their pews to the eye of man, their real selves, their hearts, appear to omniscience to be pursuing their vanities, and wandering immeasurably far from God, when they should be approaching him in the most solemn and intimate communion: so that in the very act of pretending to worship him, they mock him most. Their “week’s preparation” is hurried over with the rapidity of a school-boy repeating his task; only with not so much attention, nor with equal fear; and, while they feel religion to be perfect bondage, and go through it as a drudgery, they nevertheless depend upon their lame performances for acceptance, and so make their very sin and abomination their Saviour.