Chapter 11. Meditation for Thursday Night, on the Last Judgment

1.—Having made the sign of the cross with the preparation mentioned in the second chapter, the subject of thy meditation shall be the last judgment to awaken in thy soul two sentiments which should specially characterize every faithful christian, the love of God and a horror of sin.

2.—Consider then first the terrors of that day of trial for all the children of Adam when the career of every man’s life shall be closed and the final sentence shall be pronounced never to be altered.

3.—That day will embrace in itself all the days of ages — past present and to come, for on that day the whole world will render its accounts and God will pour forth his anger and his wrath pent up during all the ages past. With what violence then will that mighty torrent of divine indignation burst with its accumulated anger and wrath against all the sins of the whole world committed up to that time? Hence

Soph. i. does the prophet with great reason cry out; “That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities and against the high

• bulwarks.”

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4.—Consider secondly the dreadful signs which will precede that day, because as our Saviour himself says; Luke xxl, “Before that day shall come there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon and in the stars,” and finally in all created things both in heaven and on earth, for all shall feel their end before it comes, and shall tremble and shall begin to fall down before the general crash. ‘‘ But men,” he adds, ‘‘ shall wither away from fear of death at hearing the roar of the sea and the lashing of the mighty waves,” imagining thence to\themselves the dreadful calamities and miseries foreboded to the whole world by such terrible signs. Thus they shall walk staggering with fear, with faces wan and panic-stricken; dead before death, condemned before trial, measuring their danger by their fears; each one so absorbed by his own case as to have no thoughts for another, not a father for his son, nor a son for his father. No one will help another, for no one will suffice for himself. The Sibils tell us that in those days the wild beasts will prowl over the fields and through the cities, that the trees will sweat blood and that the sea will throw up its fishes upon the dry land; but if they are no authority, the prophet tells us much worse, for it is more dreadful for man to wither away, than for the sea to dry up, and worse for the powers of heaven to tremble, than for all the created things of earth.

5.—Consider thirdly that universal deluge of fire which shall precede the Judge and the dreadful blast of the trumpet which the angel shall blow to summon to one place all the generations of man to present themselves for judgment, and above all the awful majesty of the Judge described by the Prophet Nahum in these words: “The Lord's ways are in a Nahum i. tempest and in a whirlwind, and clouds are the dust of his feet, he rebuketh the sea and drieth it up; and bringeth all the rivers to be a desert. Basan languisheth and Carmel; and the flower of Lebanon fadeth away. The mountains tremble at him and the hills are made desolate ;

and the earth hath quaked at his presence, and the world and all that dwell therein. Who shall stand before the face of his indignation? And who shall resist in the fierceness of his anger? His indignation is poured out like fire, and the rocks are melted by him.”

6.—Consider afterwards how strict will be the account then demanded of each one. Truly as is said in the Book of Job, ‘‘Man cannot be justified if he compares himself with Sob xiv. 16, God, and if he desire to set himself up in judgment before him, of the thousand charges against him he will be unable to answer one.” Then what will each of the wicked feel when God shall enter into this scrutiny with him and his own conscience shall at the same time accuse him. Look here wretched creature, what sawest thou in me that thou shouldst thus have despised me and past over to my enemy? I raised thee out of the dust of the earth and I created thee after my own image and likeness, I gave thee strength and help to enable thee to obtain the reward of my glory; but thou despising my favours and my commands which I imposed on thee for the guidance of thy life, hast preferred the lying ways of the deceiver to the saving counsels of thy Lord. To deliver thee from the consequences of thy fall, I descended from heaven to the earth and suffered the greatest torments and affronts. For thee I fasted, journied, watched, laboured, and sweated drops of blood. For thee I suffered persecutions, stripes, blasphemies, scoffs, buffetings, tortures, dishonour and the cross. For thee was I born in poverty, past a life of toil and died a death of agony. These are my witnesses, this cross and nails which are here; these wounds still apparent in my feet and hands are witnesses; heaven and earth before which I suffered are witnesses: the sun and moon which at that hour hid their light are witnesses. What then hast thou done with that soul of thine purchased by me with my own blood? To whose service hast thou devoted what I purchased at such a price? Oh foolish and adulterous generation! Why wouldst thou serve this thy enemy with pain, rather than me thy Creator and Redeemer with gladness? Be astonished, oh ye heavens! and let fall your gates with dread, for my people have committed a double

Jer, ii. 12. iniquity. They have forsaken me the foun-John xviii. 40. “ tain of living waters, and they have forsaken Ps. i. me for another Barabbas. I called ye so often and ye answered me not. I knocked at your doors and ye would not awake. I stretched out my hands upon the cross and ye turned away your faces: you have held in contempt my counsels my promises and my threats. Speak out then now ye angels, judge ye, be ye the judges between me and my vineyard, what more ought I to have done for it than I have done?

7.—What answer then shall the wicked make, those who have sneered at divine things, the scoffers at virtue, those who despised the simple, who set more value on the laws of the world than upon the law of God, who were always deaf to his voice, insensible to his inspirations, rebels against all his commandments, and ungrateful and hardened in return for all his stripes and all his mercies ? What answer will they make, both those who lived as though they believed not in a God, and those who set at defiance every law but that of self-interest ? “Such as ye, what will ye do” says Isaiah, “in the day of the visitation and calamity which is approaching from afar ?” From whom will ye ask for assistance? What will your riches avail you to prevent your being carried away in irons and cast amongst the dead ?

8.—Consider then the terrible sentence the judge will fulminate against the wicked and that dreadful word that will ring in the ears of all who hear it. “His lips” says Isaiah, “are full of indignation and his tongue as devouring fire.” What fire will burn like these words? ‘‘ Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” ‘This is the most dreadful sentence that can be past upon any created being, for this departure involves the punishment which is called the pain of loss, that is an absolute spoliation of all things and deprivation of His sovereign goodness who in Himself comprises everything that is good. Where then shall they go Oh Lord, who are thus separated from thee? In what port shall they find shelter? Who shall be their Lord? Those who are banished from thee shall be denizens of earth, because they have forsaken thee the fountain of living waters, that is they have forsaken the Lord their God. The severest punishment inflicted upon a Roman citizen for the greatest crime was banishment from the noble City of Rome and from its privileges to some distant land amongst barbarous nations. If absence from Rome was such a punishment, what will absence from God be and from his elect, and banishment for ever to the company of Satan and the barbarians of hell ?

9.—‘ Depart from me,” he says, “ye cursed,” as if he were to say; I besought ye to take my blessing, but ye would not; take now my curse upon you. “The wicked man,” says

Psalm cviii. the prophet, ‘‘loved cursing, and it shall come upon him, and he would not have the blessing and it shall be far from him.” God cursed the fig tree, and not only

Mat. xxi. the leaves withered, but the trunk also so that it could never again bear fruit; and in this manner will his curse encompass the wicked, depriving them of every hope of salvation, and of every fruit and merit for ever and ever.

10.—But where, oh Lord, hast thou sent them? To everlasting fire. What a bed for the delicate and the dainty! Which of you, says the prophet, can dwell in everlasting

Isal. xxxiil. flames? Who can live in a blazing fire? What malediction can be worse than this? What calamity, what sentence, what misfortune can be compared with even the shadow of this? This is that terrible and dreadful fire which the Prophet Isaiah so vividly paints in the words, “The streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the

Isai. xxiv. ground thereof into brimstone, and the land

84 | | ee = ida thereof shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched, the smoke thereof shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it for ever and ever.”

11.—Having finished the meditation make an act of thanksgiving, ‘an oblation and petition as mentioned before in the second chapter. E