"will Thy judgment be, O Lord, when the thrones are set, and the angels
stand around, and men are brought in, and the books are opened, and all
our works are inquired into, and all our thoughts are examined, and all
the hidden things of darkness! What, O God, shall Thy judgment that day
be upon me? Who shall quench my flame, who shall lighten my darkness, if
Thou pity me not? Lord, as Thou art loving, give me tears, give me
floods of tears, and give me all that this day, before it be too late.
For then will be the incorruptible Judge, the horrible judgment-seat, the
answer without excuse, the inevitable charge, the shameful punishment,
the endless Gehenna, the pitiless angels, the yawning hell, the roaring
stream of fire, the unquenchable flame, the dark prison, the rayless
darkness, the bed of live coals, the unwearied worm, the indissoluble
chains, the bottomless chaos, the impassable wall, the inconsolable cry.
And none to stand by me; none to plead for me; none to snatch me out."
Now, no Temporary ever possessed anything like that in his own
handwriting among his private papers. A meditation like that, written
out with his own hand, and hidden away under lock and key, will secure
any man from it, even if he had been appointed to backsliding and
reprobation. Bishop Andrewes, as any one will see who reads his _Private
Devotions_, was the chief of sinners; but his discovered and deciphered
papers will all speak for him when they are spread out before the great
white throne, "glorious in their deformity, being slubbered," as his
editors say, "with his pious hands, and watered with his penitential
tears."

Thomas Shepard's _Ten Virgins_ is the most terrible book upon Temporaries
that ever was written. Temporaries never once saw their true vileness,
he keeps on saying. Temporaries are, no doubt, wounded for sin
sometimes, but never in the right place nor to the right depth. And
again, sin, and especially heart-sin, is never really bitter to