[4.] A day of reckoning will come, when God will put the bond in suit, and all shall be called to an account. Sometimes God reckoneth with sinners, in part, in this world, but surely in the next. Death is but the summons to come to an account with God : Lulce xvi. 2, ' Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.' That passage of the parable is applicable to death : ' That when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations,' ver. 9. When the soul is turned out of doors, when it is cited to appear before the tribunal of God, then we give up our account. But espe- cially at the great day : Eev. xx. 12, ' And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened;' that is, the book of conscience and the book of God's remembrance. There are two books, that are written within and without, upon which all our actions are stamped : they are now closed in a great measure ; we know not what is in these great books. One of the books (that of conscience) is in our own keeping, yet we cannot deface and blot it out. These books at that day will be opened ; conscience, by the power of God, shall be extended to the recognition of all our ways. Conscience writes when it speaks not : many times it doth not smite for sins we are guilty of ; but there stands the debt charged, upon which we shall be responsible.
[5.] After this reckoning there is execution. A bankrupt that cannot satisfy his creditor is cast into prison ; so God hath his prison for impenitent, disobedient, and obstinate sinners: 1 Pet. iii. 19, 'He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.' It is a dismal prison, where poor captive prisoners are held in chains of darkness ; that is, under the horrors of their own despairing fears, looking for the
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judgment of the Lord, when they shall be cast into this prison, and no getting out again, until they have paid the utmost farthing : Luke xii. 50. And that will never be as to the sinner : he is, as it were, always satisfying, and can never be said to have satisfied, the justice of God.
Thus you see how sin is a debt, and what correspondence there is between them — the obligation of punishment that ariseth from sin. But now it differeth from all other debts.
(1.) No debt to man can be so great as our debt to God, both for number and weight. Mat. xviii. 24, compared with ver. 28 : you shall see there the parable of the lord forgiving 'ten thousand talents ; ' and the servant goes and takes his brother by the throat, and requireth from him a debt of ' an hundred pence,' Mark, offences done to God are greater than offences done to us ; for there is as much difference and disproportion as between an hundred and ten thousand. And then the debt of the fellow-servant was but pence, an hundred pence ; but the debt due to the lord, that was talents ; and a talent is reckoned to be one hundred and eighty-seven pounds ten shillings. Our sins against God are more and more heavy than any which our brethren can commit against us. Pence, talents ; one hundred and ten thousand : there is the difference and disproportion. Oh that we had a due sense of what it is to sin against God, against an infinite majesty ! To strike a private person is not so much as to strike an officer of justice ; and that is not so much as to strike the supreme magistrate. What is it to sin against God ? and how often do we ? All our imaginations are only evil, and that continually ; and therefore all our sins against God will arise to a vast and heavy debt, because of the infiniteness of the object against whom sin is com- mitted.
(2.) In other debts there is a day of payment set them ; in this debt there is none. God doth not tell us when he will put the bond in suit against us ; he may surprise us ere we are aware. Luke xii. 20 : when he dreamed of many years, ' Thou fool, this night.' The spirits now in prison did as little think of that doleful place as those sinners which are alive. It may be to-day, to-morrow, the next hour : Gen. iv. 7, ' Sin lieth at the door.' There is a sentence and curse that waylays him. Sin, for the punishment of sin ; it is ready to seize upon him, and pluck him by the throat, and bring him into God's presence. Still the curse hovers over the head of obstinate and im- penitent sinners.
(3.) In other debts, if the goods are taken by way of execution, and suffice, the person is free ; but here God aims at the person, and the whole person. ' Body and soul are cast into hell fire,' Mat. x. 28.
(4.) Here there can be no shifting, no avoiding the danger. If you fly from God, you do but fly to God ; from God, as willing to be a friend ; to God, who is sure to be revenged. ' Whither shall I fly from thy Spirit ? If I go into the depths, thou art there,' Ps. cxxxix. God is here, there, and everywhere.