en, surrounded by the mighty angels at midnight, when mankind are wrapped in sleep. He will shed forth from his own person, a light exceeding far the splendor of the sun, a light that shall penetrate the universe and render visible not only the thousands of nations and generations then assembling before the Judge, but also their secret thoughts: a light that will like an arrow transfix with terror the heart of every sinner, and thrill with humble joy to the true believer. Then will the Judge unfold the book of his omniscience, and exhibit to an assembled universe its appalling contents. Alas, what discoveries will then be made! What scenes of midnight revelry and debauchery and murder will be brought to light! When all these, together with the wars and blood-shed to which the sinful passions of men have led, are reviewed in the light of eternity, truly their record will look like the annals of hell and the biography of devils! Reader, how will your secret life appear?

d) The law by which the different subjects of God's moral government will be judged, will be the degree of light enjoyed by them in the world. The heathen will be judged by the law of nature, and Jews and Christians by the revelation they possessed. And now will the Judge enter on the work of retribution, and reward each one according to his work! Reader, dost thou belong to the children of God? Hear the delightful plaudit, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!2 Then wilt thou be admitted into that city which has no need of a temple, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it; and which has no need of the sun, neither the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

1 Rom. 2: 12. For as many as have sinned without the (written) law, shall also perish without the law; and as many as have sinned under the law, shall be judged by the law.

2 Matth. 25: 34.

But do you belong to the enemies of God? You too must be rewarded according to your works. You have rejected the Saviour, and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing; and therefore that blood cannot be applied to cancel your sins. You have rejected the only days-man betwixt God and you, and therefore must meet the wrath of your offended Judge in the nakedness of your own guilt. To you and all the assembled enemies of God, the Judge will say, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, and thus your eternal state be unchangeably fixed.

e) Then will sentence also be passed on the devils, who kept not their first estate, and whom God had reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day. The peculiar circumstances of their transgression, and the process of judgment in reference to them, is indeed not known to us, but the fact that they will also be summoned to the judgment, is clearly revealed. We know that they, like men, were moral agents, and therefore will be judged for their voluntary conduct in reference to the will of God as made known to them.

f) After the judgment is closed, the conflagration of the earth will follow. Flaming fire from the presence of the Almighty Judge, will sweep in one continued volume over our globe, enveloping the stately tower, the magnificent palace, and the humble cot in one indiscriminate conflagration. The elements will be consumed with fervent heat, the earth will melt,3

1 Matth. 25: 35.

2 Jude v. 6. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. 2 Peter 2: 4. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.

32 Peter 3: 10. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein, shall be burned up. v. 12. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens be

the atmosphere around it will catch the flame and be converted into one body of liquid fire. Thus, "the heavens," the visible concave surrounding our earth, "will flee away from the face of him that sitteth on the throne; and no place be found for them any more!" "Seeing then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons," reader, "ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness."

In regard to this final catastrophe a diversity of opinion has existed. Some have supposed that this conflagration will involve in its train the sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars; in short, all the thousands of worlds that exist in the universal empire of Jehovah.

Others, we think with more propriety, confine its effects to the destruction of our own globe; because the judgment to which it is an appendage, refers, mainly, to the human race. The affairs of this earth will then be brought to a close; but the separate existence of other worlds may not be affected by it. Our earth and perhaps its moon, will be stricken out of the vast concave of heavenly luminaries; but the solar system will move on uninterrupted, and the loss of this little speck in creation perhaps not be noticed by the inmates of other worlds!

Some have supposed that our earth will be annihilated, whilst others have more plausibly maintained that it will be transformed into a new heaven and new earth.

V. Happiness of the righteous after Judgment.

The abode of the righteous subsequently to the solemnities of the judgment day, is designated by various names, such as heaven, paradise, our heavenly Father's house, the rest that re

ing on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.

12 Peter 3: 11.

maineth, &c. and their happiness in it is termed, eternal life,1 an incorruptible inheritance, eternal salvation, &c.

The nature of their happiness cannot perhaps be fully comprehended by us in this life, although much may be learned from the numerous representations of the sacred volume.

I. The state of the righteous after judgment is represented as having locality, being a place. This is evident even from the several names applied to it in scripture. Probably it is the same place in which they had dwelt prior to judgment; or perhaps the sphere of their agency and enjoyment is now far more extensive, pervading the immense regions of Jehovah's kingdom.

Michaelis supposed the renovated earth to be the destined future abode of the blessed. Pfaffius believed heaven to be in the bosom of God himself, where the angels and the spirits of the just made perfect would enjoy eternal rest.

II. The nature of the future blessedness of the saints is known

to us but in part. It will consist of an entire absence of all pain, sickness or want, and the positive enjoyment of the bliss prepared for those who love God.

a) The saints will derive new capacities for holy action and enjoyment, from their union with the resuscitated, glorified body. How much the action and enjoyment of the soul depends on the organization and health of the body even in this life is

1 Matth. 25: 46. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.

21 Pet. 1: 4. To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.

3 Heb. 5:6. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation, unto all thein that obey him.

4 Michaelis Dogmatik, p. 589.

5 C. M. Pfaffii, Dis. de cœlo beatorum.

6 Phil. 3: 21. Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

well known. But in heaven the exalted spirit will never be retarded in its movements by any defect or disorder of its bodily organs. On the contrary, the superior refinement and perfection of the organs, will add correspondent perfection to the operations of the soul. The properties of this glorified body being different from those of what we term matter, human language contained no words properly to designate them. The apostle, therefore, in the language of approximation, terms it a spiritual body. This literally would mean mental matter, and be a contradiction in terms; but all will understand the apostle to mean, that the risen body will be so much more refined and elevated in nature, as to bear more resemblance to a spirit than to any other known object. It is also termed a celestial, an incorruptible, an immortal3 body. This body will doubtless have different and more numerous organs of sense than had the earthly. Among the animals known to us some have fewer senses than man, and some possess one or other of the senses in a much higher degree than he. It is analogous then to expect that in his union with the heavenly body man will have more and higher senses than are now known to us.

b) In death too the spirit will be freed from all that intellectual imbecility derived from the dominion of sin. That the apostasy of our first parents, and the disordered frame with which we are now born, have very much abridged the intellectual power of man, admits of no doubt. But in eternity the soul will commence its career anew, with powers of intellect equal at least to the developed faculties of a Newton or a Leibnitz. Now we

11 Cor 15: 44. It is sown a natural body, and it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.

2 v. 40. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

3 v. 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.