at the time of his resurrection, or before that event but still reigning over every deceased soul, forbidding it, since the God in whom we live and move, and have our being, is not the God of the dead,--to live, to move, or to be.

H

CHAPTER VII.

THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT.

UMAN philosophy, both natural and moral, has been proved by experience as unable to approach the truths revealed in Scripture concerning the Day of Judgement, as to decide the fate of a disembodied soul. It can indeed furnish some reasons for conjecturing that our present earth shall finally be broken up and ruined, if not actually annihilated; and some-most feeble and insufficient-reasons also, for supposing that the whole human race shall finally be gathered, one by one, as they depart this life, into two permanent worlds; but that their present world shall pass away before the commencement of the final state even of the first-born of the race; and that in its fall and ruin shall be involved that of, as far as we know, the whole material universe, are truths beyond the reach of man.

It lies indeed within the province of reason to determine, that the world is not the work of

chance, or of any blind power; but of a Designer and a Deity, by whom the whole was called into being, wrought up, arranged, set in motion, organized, animated. And it is evident that the same Power who created can likewise, either gradually or suddenly, uncreate; nay, that His might only can sustain; that His is the breath of life in the nostrils of all creatures, and the strength of the hills is His also; and that the universe, if no longer upheld by the word of his power, must vanish like smoke. And we may away further conjecture that the chief end of the creation of our earth was to afford a fit abode for the human race that, as other races, of plants and animals, have been permitted to become extinct, so also our own race may have its term, and our mansion either be pulled down when its tenants are gone, or be brought in ruins on their heads, when the Mighty One who upholds the pillars of it, has decreed their destruction.

The observations of astronomers also seem to indicate that the hand of the Almighty is even now at work, creating or destroying worlds. Stars as splendid as the sun have opened their light in regions previously dark; others have been blotted out from the heavenly scroll, and their place has known them no more: whence the eventual extinction of our own sun, and the consequent destruction of the human race, at some perhaps all but infinitely remote period, is not an improbable event. And as we cannot but believe that there was a time when no part of the

visible universe (or of that all but boundless system, in comparison of which the part visible to us is probably small) as yet was called into being; so we may conclude that a time will come when all shall have ceased to exist. But that all shall be together abolished, that one period shall be the fulness of time for all, is contrary to every anticipation. "The day of the Lord," nevertheless, shall come as a thief in the night, suddenly as the deluge; and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and all things being on fire shall be dissolved; the earth and heavens shall flee away from before the face of God, and no place be found for them. So it is written, so it is decreed. Philosophy never dreamed of such a consummation; nor dared foresee "the end of things created."

Nay, it is disbelieved by many who, while they profess to acknowledge the authority of revelation, would suppose that its language is metaphorical; or that the heavens intended are merely the atmosphere encircling our own globe. Let such persons consider our Lords own words;-" The sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars of heaven shall fall, the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds." At our Lord's ascension "a cloud received him out of the sight" of his disciples. Beyond dispute we are to take that account literally: and so also

*Mark xiii. 24.

when it is said that Christ will come in the clouds of heaven, we are to understand the material clouds of the visible heavens of the heavens to which the redeemed will be "caught up to meet the Lord in the air" at his coming. How then can we understand the words "sun, moon, and stars," otherwise than literally? Of that type of the Second Advent, the destruction of Jerusalem, it was prophesied, "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines and pestilences, and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven:" and profane history records the literal fulfilment of every part of the prophecy. How then can we suppose the language metaphorical which tells us "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring?" And what portion of the material created universe shall be saved, when the stars fall, and the powers of heaven are shaken? what portion does St. Paul except, when he speaks of the "removal of those things which are shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain ?"* By the powers of heaven seem to be intended those invisible forces by which the whole material universe, the whole system of "things that are made," is maintained in being.† These being shaken and removed, the sun, moon,

and stars, must fall in ruin, must vanish away like smoke. They pervade the whole visible universe, to the furthest bounds of the space cognisable by man; and would scarcely be said to be "removed" merely because their agency was suspended as regards this speck of earth, or the sun to which it belongs. If these powers fail, all the things created must fail with them, and pass away together on the "Dreadful Day."

Then also shall take place that common judgement of mankind, and that first entrance into celestial bliss or eternal punishment, which to the heathens was wholly unknown, and which no philosophy can teach. Ante-dating the events of the Last Day, and distributing them over a long period, the heathen philosopher placed the throne of Pluto, or of some similar power, in the shades below, and supposed him to hold a perennial sessions for the separate trial of each soul summoned before him by Death; and to assign each to its appropriate place of bliss or bale. Many who in modern times would be wise above that which is written have indulged in the same natural error; and not contented with the Day of Judgement, Heaven, and Hell, have insisted on a previous adjudication, and on preliminary states of happiness or misery.

The principles upon which judgement shall be executed on that Day, are yet more remote from human conjectures than is the universality of the judgement. That our earth and all visible worlds