5. Both are the result of a foregoing judgment, wherein the cause had been sufficiently tried and cleared, and sentence passed. In all regular judgment, after the trial of the cause, there is sentence, and upon sentence, execution. So it is here, there is a discussion of the cause, and then a sentence of absolution to the godly : Mat. xxv. 34, ' Come, ye blessed of my Father ; inherit the kingdom prepared for you ' of condemnation on the wicked: ver. 41, ' Depart, ye cursed into everlasting fire.' Then what remaineth but that the sentence should be executed ? This being the final sentence which shall be given upon all meu and all their works, the end of this judgment is to do justice, and to fulfil the will and truth of the law-giver. Now the execution is certain, speedy, and unavoidable.
[1.] Certain ; when the matter is once tried, there will be sentence ; and sentence once past, there will be execution. We often hreak up court before things come to a full hearing, and so delay the sentence; if we cannot delay the sentence, we seek to delay the execution ; but sentence once past here, it must needs be executed. Partly, because there will be no change of mind in the judge; he is inflexible and inexorable, because there is no error in his sentence, but it is every way righteous, and the truth of God is now to be manifested. God would not affright us with that he never intended to do ; grant this judgment and execution is uncertain, and all his threatenings will be but a vain scarecrow. In the days of his patience and grace his sentence may be repealed : Muted sententiam, sed non decretum ; as Jer. viii. 7, 8, ' At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and a kingdom, to pluck it up, and pull it down, and to destroy it, if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from the evil, I will repent of the evil, which I thought to do.' Here God revoketh the doom ; conviction now maketh way for conversion, but then for con- fusion. And partly, because there is no change of state in the persons judged ; they are in tei^mino, as the apostate angels. While man is in the way, his case is compassionable ; God allowed a change of state to man after the fall, which must not last always, 2 Peter iii, 9. He waiteth long for our repentance, but he will not wait ever ; here we may get the sentence reversed, if we repent, but then it is final and
88 SERMONS UPOX 2 CORINTHIANS V. [SeR. XVII.
peremptory, excluding all further hopes and possibility of remedy. And partly, because there can be no change of the heart, they may have some relentings, when matters of faith become matter of sense. For if they would not love God inviting by his mercies and offering pardon, then they will not love him condemning and punishing, and shutting them out from all hope. These three infer one another ; because no change of heart, no change of state ; because no change of state, no change of sentence.
[2.] It is speedy. There was no delay, they were presently trans- mitted, and put into their everlasting estate ; here is sententia lata, sed dilata — sentence is past but not executed : Eccles. viii. 11,' Because sentence is not speedily executed upon an evil doer.' Bat here it is otherwise, they must depart, and be gone speedily out of God's presence : Esther vii. 8, ' As soon as the word was gone out of the king's mouth,' they had him away to execution.
[3.] It is unavoidable. It is in vain to look about for help, all the world cannot rescue one such soul. In short, there is no avoiding by appeal, because this is the last judgment ; nor by rescue, they shall go away, not of their own accord, but compelled ; it is said, Mat. xiii. 42,
* The angels shall gather them, and cast them into a furnace of fire.' So again cast them, they shall be dragged away. Not by flight, for there is no escaping ; nor entreaty, for the judge is inexorable.
6. The sentence is executed upon the wicked first ; it beginneth with them, for it is said ' These shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal.' Now this is not merely because the order of the narration did so require it, the wicked being spoken of last ; but there is a material truth in it, sentence beginneth with the godly, and execution with the wicked. Sentence with the godly, because they are not only to be judged, but to judge the world together with Christ, 1 Cor. vi. 2. Now they must be first acquitted and absolved themselves before that honour can be put upon them. But execution with the wicked: Mat. xiii. 30, ' Let both grow together until the harvest. I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles, to burn them, gather ye the wheat into my barn.' First the wicked are cast into hell-fire, Christ and all the godly with him looking on ; which worketh more upon the envy and grief of the wicked, that they are thrust out, while the godly remain with Christ, seeing execution done upon them. And the godly have the deeper sense of their own happi- ness by seeing from what wrath they are delivered ; as the Israelites when they saw the Egyptians dead upon the shore, Exod.xiv. 30, 31, with xv. 1,