But in the day of judgment they shall have another sort of meeting; then the secrets of every heart shall be made manifest, and every man’s state shall be perfectly known: 1 Cor. iv. 5, “Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.” Then none shall be deceived concerning his own state, nor shall be any more in doubt about it. There shall be an eternal end to all the ill conceit and vain hopes of deluded hypocrites, and all the doubts and fears of sincere Christians. And then shall all know the state of one another’s souls: the people shall know whether their minister has been sincere and faithful, and the ministers shall know the state of every one of their people, and to whom the word and ordinances of God have been a savor of life unto life, and to whom a savor of death unto death.
Now in this present state it often happens that when ministers and people meet together to debate and manage their ecclesiastical affairs, especially in a state of controversy, they are ready to judge and censure one another with regard to each other’s views and designs, and the principles and ends that each is influenced by; and are greatly mistaken in their judgment, and wrong one another with regard to each other’s views and designs and the principles and ends that each is influenced by, and are greatly mistaken in their judgment, and wrong one another in their censures. But at that future meeting, things will be set in a true and perfect light, and the principles and aims that every one has acted from shall be certainly known; and there will be an end to all errors of this kind, and all unrighteous censures.
(3) In this world, ministers and their people often meet together to hear of and wait upon an unseen Lord; but at the day of judgment they shall meet in his most immediate and visible presence.
Ministers, who now often meet their people to preach to ’em the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, to convince ’em that there is a God, and declare to ’em what manner of being he is, and to convince ’em that he governs and will judge the world, and that there is a future state of rewards and punishments, and to preach to ’em a Christ in heaven and at the right hand of God in an unseen world, shall then meet their people in the most immediate sensible presence of this great God, Saviour and Judge, appearing in the most plain, visible and open manner, with great glory, with all his holy angels, before them and the whole world. They shall not meet them to hear about an absent Christ, an unseen Lord and future Judge; but to appear before that Judge, and as being set together in the presence of that supreme Lord, in his immense glory and awful majesty, whom they have heard so often of in their meetings together on earth.
(4) The meeting, at the last day, of ministers, and the people that have been under their care, will not be attended by anyone with a careless, heedless heart.
With such an heart are their meetings often attended in this world by many persons, having little regard to him whom they pretend unitedly to adore in the solemn duties of his public worship, taking little heed to their own thoughts or frame of their minds, not attending to the business they are engaged in, or considering the end for which they are come together. But the meeting at that great day will be very different: there will not be one careless heart, no sleeping, no wandering of mind from the great concern of the meeting, no inattentiveness to the business of the day, no regardlessness of the presence they are in, or of those great things which they shall hear from Christ at that meeting, or that they formerly heard from him and of him by their ministers, in their meeting in a state of trial, or which they shall now hear their ministers declaring concerning them before their judge.
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