For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.
Ver. 14. For God shall bring every work into judgment.] Full loath is sinful flesh to come to judgment; but (will they, nill they), come they must, "God will bring them." Angels will hale them out of their hiding holes. Rocks and mountains will then prove a sorry shelter, since rocks shall rend and mountains melt at the presence of the Judge. Let us therefore judge ourselves, if he shall not judge us, and take unto us words against our sins, if we will not have him to take unto him words against our souls. Hos 14:2 And then, Ira vivamus, ut rationem nobis reddendam arbitretour, saith the heathen orator, Let us so live as those that must shortly be called to an account. For who can tell but that he may suddenly hear as that Pope did, and was soon after found dead, Veni, miser, in iudicium, Come, thou wretch, receive thy judgment. Let this be firmly believed and thoroughly digested, and it will notably incite us to the fear and service of God. This some heathens knew. Zaleucus Locrensis, in the preface to his laws, hath these words: Hoc inculcatum sit, esse Deos, et venturum esse summum et fatalem illum diem: Remember to press often upon the people these two things; first, That there are gods; next, To these gods an account of all must be given. The Areopagites at their council were wont diligently to inquire what every one of the Athenians did, and how he lived, that men knowing and remembering that once they must give an account of their lives, though but to earthly judges, might embrace honesty. a
With every secret thing.] For at that day of "Revelation," as it is called, we must all appear - or be made transparent, translucent, and dear, like a perfectly transparent body, as the word there signifies - before the judgment seat of Christ; 2Co 5:10 all shall be laid naked and open, the books of God's omniscience and man's conscience also shall be then opened, and secret sins shall be as legible in thy forehead as if written with the brightest stars or the most glittering sunbeams upon a wall of crystal. Men's actions are all in print in heaven, and God will at that day read them aloud in the ears of all the world.
Whether it be good or evil.] Then it shall appear what it is, which before was not so clear; like as in April both wholesome roots and poisonable reveal themselves, which in winter were not seen. Then men shall give an account - (1.) De bonis commissis, of good things committed unto them; (2.) De bonis dimissis, of good things neglected by them; (3.) De malis commissis, of evils committed by them; (4.) Lastly, De malis permissis, of evils done by others, suffered by them when they might have hindered it.
Here (as also at the end of Lamentations, Isaiah, and Malachi) many of the Hebrew Bibles repeat the foregoing verse, Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, &c., yet without points, lest anything should seem added thereby to the holy Scriptures. Hebrew Text Note The reason hereof read in the end of the prophecy of Isaiah. See Trapp on " Isa 66:24 "
a Rouz's Archaeol. Atti., 125.
Laus Deo