living, not according to the customs and usages of the world, but as the law of God prescribes; I am in the world not to act as I see others doing, but as my Lord and Saviour has taught me by word and example! Let me now be poor, unknown, simple, nay, foolish, in the world’s estimation: that is nothing to me; the day will come when my innocence, piety, and justice shall be publicly brought to light; that day on which I shall be counted amongst the sheep of Christ, separated from the reprobate goats by the angels, placed in the glory of the elect at the right hand of the Judge; that day on which I shall hear the welcome words: “Come, ye blessed of my Father!” Come with Me into the eternal kingdom of heaven. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent.
Text.
Et videbit omnis caro salutare Dei.—Luke iii. 6.
“And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Introduction.
All flesh? Yes; all flesh shall see the salvation of God; the souls of all men clothed with their bodies, the elect and the reprobate, shall on that day be summoned by the trumpet before the judgment-seat of God in the valley of Josaphat, and in their Saviour they shall behold their Judge; and although they have all heard their sentence already in the particular judgment immediately after death, they shall again hear the same sentence in the presence of heaven and earth. But why so? That God may avenge His injured honor in the sight of the world, and justify His works that now appear to us incomprehensible, etc. Continues as above.
