In their section on the Last Judgment, after a Summons from beyond, Tallis and Byrd create a frame within which to make their most particular points defending a Catholic approach to justification. Specifically, they mention the culminating event itself in the twenty-fourth and then again in the thirty-third song to remind their auditors about the inevitable day as they exhort all to take the right actions to achieve salvation. In between the two framing songs they lay out their position by asserting that one's sins and good deeds will be assessed at the Final Judgment and therefore that it would be dangerously wrong to adopt the extreme Protestant position that salvation is achieved by faith alone. It is a particularly rich section theologically and didactically, as well as poetically and musically. As they lead their auditor toward something no less desired than a place with the blessed at the Throne of Judgment, they make the case for their own art form (and possibly the fate of some Catholic priests) with feats of musical prowess that showcase elements of learnedness and expression as they advance the logos (reason) of their argument in setting the texts shown in Table 5.

Deeds

The opening work of the Last Judgment frame, Domine, secundum actum meum (24), is a choral respond that appears after the eighth lesson of Matins in the Office of the Dead. It follows a reading based on Job 16 and – in keeping with the reading's tone of despair – it voices a desperate plea to the “Lord” to “judge me not according to my deeds.” Although the text contains part of the seventh line, “blot out my iniquities,” of the famous fiftieth Psalm, the texts are otherwise distinct. Thus, it is likely that the dedicatee of Tallis and Byrd's set, Queen Elizabeth, in her book of devotions, drew directly from the Office text in the translation of the following prayer, which originally appeared in French: