if Judgment be of any concernment to us, I am fure it is of great concernment to prepare our felves for Judgment: And if we must be judged for Eternity, Judgment is of as great concernment to us, as Eternal Life and Death. Nor is there any great difficulty to know how thofe men ought to live, who must be judged; every man knows this without a Teacher, who will give him felf leave to think: A Steward, a Factor, a Labourer, any perfon who is liable to the Cenfure and Judgment of a Superior, who will call him to an Account, knows what he is to do, to prepare his Accounts; and there is no greater Myftery in preparing our felves for God's Judgment, than for the Judgment of Men. But because all men will not confider things as they ought, tho they be never fo plain and obvious, I fhall briefly fuggeft fome Rules to you,which you must all acknowledge very reafonable at the first hearing, and which if well obferved, would make us lift up our Heads in the Day of Judgment, and expect it without Aftonishment and Terror:

1. If we must be judged, it becomes us to act with great Confideration and Advice: Rashness, Precipitancy, Inadvertency, to do we know not what, in a Heat, and Impetus, without confidering whether it be good or evil, right or wrong, does not become those who must be judged. To be judged is to be called to an account, to give a reafon for what we do, and therefore we ought to confider what reafon to give, before we do it.. We must be judged by a Rule, as you fhall hear more hereafter; and therefore we ought to live by Rule too, which no man can do,who does not confider well, what

he

he does, before he does it: it will be an ill Plea at the Day of Judgment to fay, that we did not confider what we did; that we lived without Care, without Thought, without Obfervation; for this is not an allowable Plea for a Reasonable Creature,much lefs for one who knows he must be judged: For why did you live withoutThought,without Confideration? Had you not the Power of Thinking, of Reasoning, of Confidering? and did not God give thefe Powers and Faculties to you, to direct and govern your Lives? did he not make you Reasonable Creatures, that you might confider, and live by Reason, and is it an Excuse then for a Reasonable Creature, that he lived and acted without Reason, and a wife Confideration of Things? This is the great Degeneracy of Human Nature the abufe and Corruption of thofe Natural Powers which God hath given us, the Source of all the Evils that are in thisWorld, and therefore can be no Excufe, much less,when we know that God will judge us, and require a reafon of our Actions: for not to confider our own Ways, when we know God confiders them, and will require an account of them, is a contempt of his Judgment; for did we reverence. our Judge, we muft confider; and yet how many mad, extravagant, wicked Actions are there daily committed, which thofe who do them, never think why they do them, nor what reafo nable account they can give of them either to God

or Man.

Some men are very fond of what they call a Frolick? that is, to lay afide all Thought and Confideration, and to give themselves up to the government of every fudden and unaccountable

Fancy,

Fancy, and the more wild and extravagant it is, the more entertaining, without any regard toVirtue or Vice, to Decency and Honour, the leaft thought of which is a Prophanation of these Bedlam Myfteries: they drink themselves drunk in a Frolick, Blafpheme GOD, and his Son J ESUS CHRIST, and his moft holy Religion, abufe Wives and Virgins, murther innocent People, and affront all they meet, in a Frolick: but it is ridiculous to imagine, if we must be judged, that fuch Frolicks as thefe fhall be allow'd in the Account, or pafs for Cyphers and empty Scenes of Life, to fignifie no more than they were intended for; that becaufe we chufe at fuch a time to act without Reason and Confideration, therefore GOD fhould demand no Reason nor Account of fuch Actions.

And yet a very great part of the World, tho they do not run into fuch outragious Frolicks as thefe are, yet their Lives are little better than a train of incoherent and independent Fancies and Humours; they live without Thought, or any wife defign; any extempore Project has them, which starts up in their Minds, or ftrikes their Fancies: they fcarce know what they have to do the next day, nor how they spent the laft: But is this a Life for men who are to be judged?

Others there are who give themselves up to the government of their Paffions, which are fo vehement and impetuous,and always in fo much hafte, that they will neither hear Reason, nor allow any time for it; and then no wonder if they do fuch things as they can give no good account of,when their Paffion is over.

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Others are more fixt and refolved in their way, they have chofe fuch a courfe of Life as they like beft, and they are refolved to purfue it, and that nothing fhall put them out of it; and therefore they refolve against thinking too, left that fhould difturb them, and give check to their Enjoyments! They will neither liften to their own Confciences, nor hearken to the Importunities of their Friends, nor be perfuaded to confider, what the probable end of all their Actions will be, both in this World, and in the next.

These are all unthinking unconfidering Sinners; but you will all confefs, that thefe men do not live as if they were to be judged; and therefore if we believe that we fhall be judged, none of us ought to live thus: we ought to confider well beforehand, what we do, that we may be able to give a reasonable Account of it,, when we have done it; for if we must give a reafon of our Actions, when we have done them, we ought to know a reafon for them, before we do them and therefore we must accuftom our Minds to a grave and ferious Confideration of things, to live by Reason, not by Humour and Fancy, not by the Impetus and Fury of Paffion, which is a very ill Counsellor; much less to purfue our Lufts with an affected and refolved Ignorance and Blindnefs; for all this will not prevent our being judged, but will make us very unable to give a good account of our felves when we are.

2. As we must act with great Confideration, fo we must make it the standing Principle and Rule of our Lives, never to do any thing but what we can give a good account of; either what we know is our Duty, or at least what we are fatisfy'd is

very lawful and innocent to be done; for if we do thofe things which we cannot account for, for which our own Minds condemn us, how can we appear with any hope and confidence at the Tribunal of God? When men tranfgrefs a known Duty, they are Self-condemned, and God need not judge them, but only execute the Sentence and Judgment of their own Confcience, To believe that God will judge us, and yet to venture upon fuch Actions, for which our own Confciences condemn us, and for which we know God will ascertainly condemn us,as ourown Confciences do, is folly and diftraction: fince we must be judged, our great care and concernment fhould be, that when we are judged, we may not be condemned; and the most effectual way to prevent this, is to do nothing which our Confcience condemns: it is poffible indeed, that men who fin wilfully against a known Duty, may recover themselves by Repentance, and obtain Mercy through the Merits and Mediation of Jefus Chrift; but it does not become any man,who believes a Judgment, to fin, that grace may grace may abound; thefe Hopes very often deceive men, and will always do fo, till they come to this Refolution, never to violate a known Duty, to provoke the Juftice, or to exercife the Patience and Forbearance of GOD. There is no other way to escape the Condemnation of the laft Judgment, but by a refolved Obedience to the Divine Laws; and therefore if we believe we fhall be judged, nothing can be more neceffary, nor more becoming, than to make this the conftant Rule of our Actions, never to do any thing for which we know God will condemn us, nothing but what

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