verse than is to be found in any other writer; and to be quite irrefutable. If so, the notion of the conflagration of the world and of the universe must be utterly chimerical; as also, I think, appears conclusively from our preceding observations. Thus, the accompaniments expected to attend the Last Judgment, if performed in the natural world, all utterly failing, again are we driven out of nature to look for it, and compelled to acknowledge, that the destined scene of its performance was not the natural but the spiritual world. SECTION IV. THE LAST JUDGMENT. PART II. The Spiritual World the Scene of it; as of all former General Judgments. That branch of our first Proposition which affirms, "Thai the General Judgment announced in Scripture as to be performed at the Second Coming of the Lord, was not to take place in the natural world," may now, it is hoped, have been proved to the satisfaction of the reflecting mind; for we have seen as proposed, "That the circumstances announced in prophecy as being to attend it, are such as cannot be intended to be literally understood, and, some of them, such as are impossible in the nature of things." Other texts also, we have seen, as explicitly affirm the contrary; while Reason has much to offer in support of their testimony. The other part of the Proposition, "That the Last Judgment was to be performed in the spiritual world," follows then of course, as also has been seen. This, however, may be confirmed by other considerations. What then if it should be true, that although the General Judgment predicted in the New Testament is properly called the Last Judgment, because it is the last General Judgment ever to be performed on the natives of this earth, it is not the first such Judgment ever accomplished (as, indeed, its very. name seems to imply); but, on the contrary, two or three general judgments have taken place before? If the Last Judg ment was not to be performed at the end of the world, but, as shown above, at the end of the age; and if "the age," as shown also, denotes the whole duration of a certain order of things as regards the dispensation of God to man; then, as it is certain that there have been, since the beginning of the world, several such ages and dispensations, it will be reasonable to conclude, that the end of each of the former of them, like the end of the last, was attended with a General Judgment upon those who lived under it. Accordingly, the Scripture clearly teaches, how much soever its testimony upon this subject may generally have been overlooked, that such is the fact. As it prophetically announces that the last age and dispensation ever to come to its end or consummation would then be attended with a General Judgment, so does it historically record, that each of the former of such ages and dispensations was attended at its end by a General Judgment. Its testimony to this effect, therefore, we will briefly notice. That, from the beginning of the world, the specific connection of its inhabitants with their Divine Parent has been regulated by four different dispensations, and they have been bound to him by four distinct covenants, the human subjects of which may be regarded as composing four general churches, is universally known. Adam and his posterity to the flood, lived under one dispensation: God then "established his covenant with Noah and his seed after him :"* another covenant was made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants,† of which the laws were given by Moses: and finally, " grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." It is also known, that the first three of these dispensations were entirely corrupted, and the covenants broken, by those to whom they were given, among whom the churches thus formed in consequence perished: and that the case would be the same with the fourth dispensation and covenant, is predicted through a great part of the Apocalypse, and by the Lord in person in Matt. xxiv., and, summarily, in that question of his which supposes a negative answer, "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"S The language in which the judgment upon the three former of these churches is described, being of the same symbolic kind as that in which the. judgment upon the last is predicted, it has not been generally understood to relate to any transaction in the spiritual world, but has been confined to the calamities with which, in the natural world, the apostate members of those churches were at length overtaken; and yet, that the descriptions refer to judgments in the spiritual world also, may easily be inferred. Thus, as has already been seen, the passing away of heaven and earth, and convulsions in the heavenly bodies equiva† Gen. xvii. 7, 19. *Gen. ix. 9. § Luke xviii. 8. lent thereto, are constantly predicated in reference to the Last Judgment, and to the coming of the Lord for its performance: and these are predicated, not only in reference to the judgment which the Christian world is still expecting, but to the judgments on each of the former churches. The Apostle Peter, for instance, informs us, that the same sort of catastrophe as is described by the prophets under the figure of the conflagration of heaven and earth, is described by Moses under the figure of a flood: he says, "By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth, standing out of the water, and in the water; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed by water, perished but the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." We find then, that as the destruction of heaven and earth by fire is one of the forms by which the Last General Judgment is described, so the destruction of the world that then was by a flood is the form by which the General Judgment upon the Adamic Church is described if then the Last General Judgment was not to consist solely, nor at all, in the conflagration of the visible universe, but in a judgment upon those who had passed out of the natural into the spiritual world, the judgment upon the members of the Adamic Church did not consist solely, and probably not at all, in a flood of material waters, but in a judgment upon those who had passed from the material into the spiritual world. The Noetic Church did not long continue as one: "in the days of Peleg was the earth divided :" and, being scattered at Babel, they no longer continued to be "of one language and of one speech,"S—that is, they split into different forms of worship and doctrine; and all the ancient nations mentioned in the Old Testament were various branches of this church. Hence it does not appear that there was any General Judgment upon the whole together, till the Lord came into the world, and performed the judgment on the Jewish Church; which itself sprung out of the Noetic Church, and most of the constitutions of which, as is well known, were selected from those which had previously been in use: but specific judgments. *2 Pet. iii. 5, 6, 7. †That the first eleven chapters of Genesis do not contain an exact detail of natural events, but a history of the spiritual state of mankind in those ages, couched in the language of allegory, being the only style in use among the people whose history it describes; and that literally true history begins with the account of Abraham; may be seen fully established in "the Plenary Inspiration." &c. pp. 555-576. ‡ Gen. x. 25. § Gen, ix. 1. upon various branches of it are mentioned in several parts of the Old Testament. Thus Sodom was destroyed by fire from heaven; and under this fact, performed in the natural world, was doubtless represented a judgment in the spiritual world, upon all of the same character who had passed into that world by death. But, not to dwell upon the judgments of those more ancient churches; it will be sufficient for our present argument if it can be shown, that the Lord himself performed a Judgment, while in the world, of the same nature as the Last Judgment, which he then also prophetically declared that he would, at his Second Coming, accomplish. To such a judgment, many of the prophets of the Old Testament clearly refer. Their predictions respecting the Coming of the Lord into the world, are frequently connected with the announcement of a judgment then to be performed by him. They even represent the execution of such a judgment as inseparable from that work of redemption which all acknowledge that he came to accomplish; for without the removal thereby of evil spirits from the immediate influence which they then exercised upon the world, there could have been no salvation for the human race. Not to make an important assertion without proving it, I offer the following as a few samples of the predictions, in the Old Testament, of a judgment to be performed by the Lord at his advent in the flesh. To what else can these words of Isaiah be worthily referred ? "Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. Now though this in its literal sense, refers to the destruction of Babylon, who can doubt that it refers also to the destruction, at the judgment to be performed by the Lord at his coming into the world, of those who are spiritually meant by Babylon throughout the Word of God, that is, of those who profane religion by applying its sanctities to the purpose of self-exaltation? Hence it is said of Babylon personified under *Isa. xiii. 9-13. the name of Lucifer, in the next chapter, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cast down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"—words which as the whole context shows, are not spoken of any casting down of Lucifer then past, but of an event then to come, and which the ruin of the Babylonian empire, which also did not happen till two hundred years after the delivery of this prophecy, was a type. "Behold your God will come with vengeance, even with God with a recompense: he will come and save you."* Here the judgment to be performed by the Lord when in the world is spoken of, as necessary to the salvation of the human race. "The spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord hath sent me to preach good tidings unto the meek, &c., to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God."+ In these words, the day of salvation is announced as accompanied by the day of judg ment and of this prophecy the Lord himself said while in the world, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." "For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation to me, and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury; and I will bring down their strength to the earth." Here again is the salvation to be wrought by the Lord's coming into the world connected with a judgment to be performed at the same time. "Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he-goats." This whole chapter treats of the salvation to be procured by the Lord when he should appear in the world in the character of the good shepherd; and the judgment then to be performed is in these words briefly described under the same image of sepa rating between the sheep and the goats, as is so beautifully amplified in the description of the Last Judgment in Matt xxv. "Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey for my determination is to gather the nations, that may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent." Here is a plain prediction of a General Judgment, described with the symbolic accompaniment of the burning of the earth, immediately to precede the establishment of the Christian religion. “I I * Ch. xxxv. 4. † Ch. lii. 1, 2. Ezek. xxxiv. 17. Luke iv. 21. ¶ Zeph. iii. 8. |