only be visible, but tangible and audibly communica tive. "His flesh saw not corruption," and the entire body lived again, and was touched and handled; it spoke, walked, and ate; and as he said, " A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." His body, like Lazarus' body, could be fully identified by the living, and for the forty days after his resurrection he would seem to have been as fully in the flesh as before his crucifixion. But that body was not to die again. The human spirit was reunited, no more to be dis solved; and when the ascension hour arrived, and the body went up from the mount at Bethany, it was changed in the cloud that received him from the corruptible and mortal to the incorruptible and immortal, and which is to have a second coming in like manner as this first ascending. His human body went to the right hand of power, a truly spiritual body as the glorified saints shall be. SECTION IV. THE FINAL JUDGMENT. REDEEMED Humanity, as now viewed, has finished its second probation in mortal flesh, and raised to an immortal reunion of soul and spirit in a spiritual body, awaits the final Judgment. The fall of man was connected with the sin of angels, and all moral beings have an interest in the divine manifestations made in the work of redemption; the intelligent universe must be intensely attentive to the disclosures and issues of the last mediatorial official function. 1. THE DESIGN OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT. The intermediate state has occasioned experiences which have given full disclosures of character and condition; and all the living, in their entire change to the spiritual body, have come into full consciousness of the disposition they have settled each for himself; the last judgment is not, therefore, needed nor designed for making any new discriminations of state and affection of heart towards truth and God. But in the wide administration of the divine government, many inscrutable measures have been taken for fulfilling eternal purposes, and measures of justice and judgment, patience and favor, have been so often mysteriously mingled, that it has been impossible for finite spirits to comprehend the equity of many transactions; and the great interposition of God in human flesh, making redemption for a lost race, and requiring many sovereign interpositions of providence and interferences of divine influence, which the consummation of God's design can alone clear up; all must now be reconciled with reason, and stand out clear in conformity with righteousness and truth. Both for the sovereign's and subject's sake, such final and universal vindication of sovereign authority in its dispensation of judgment and grace is important. The new basis laid for human probation, the entire system of doctrine and evangelical ordinances, and all the mediatorial administration, must be made convincingly correct and just to every conscience. God will be justified when he speaks, and clear when he judges; every mouth stopped, and all cavilling dissent shown to be guilty before God. 2. THE EVIDENCES OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT. The aspirations of quickened and ardent piety "look forward and hasten to the coming of the day of God; "1 and burdened with indwelling and surrounding sin, exposed to detraction and persecution, the longing soul cries, "Even so come, Lord Jesus," quickly.? On the other hand, the guilty have dread forebodings of its coming. Felix trembled at Paul's preaching of the judgment to come, and the devils anticipate their time of torment. These inward premonitions are sure foretokens that the day is coming. The reason of the case calls for such vindication and deliverance of the good, and such destructive rejection of the bad; but beyond all, the direct revelation of God has kept the fact perpetually before the world. David says, "The Lord shall judge the people;" and prays, "O, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just; for the righteous God trieth the heart and the reins."5 Solomon warns the thoughtless youth of the judgment, and urges on all to keep God's commandments: "For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." And Daniel had it fully announced that all things should be fairly redressed in the end.2 The New Testament is much more particular. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from the other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."3 "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, whether it be good or bad." 4 . 3. THE DAY WILL COME SUDDENLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY. There are considerations by which we know the world is not yet ready for the judgment. The gospel is to be "first preached to all the world," 5 and the man of sin is to be fully exposed, before the judg ment. But if not now ready, when these events shall have passed, it will still be left uncertain when the Judge shall come. Before the destruction of Jerusa lem, it was foretold that portentous precursors should be given; and the manifestly double representation Eccl. xii. 14. 3 Matt. xxv. 31-46. Rom. xiv. 10. 62 Thess. ii. 3. of the destruction of the temple and the end of the world in the prophecy Matt. xxiv. 15 to 33 has induced the opinion that forewarnings of the judgment will also be given. But that generation was not to pass before the signs should be fulfilled.1 History declares these signs appeared before Jerusalem was destroyed, but the sign preceding the judgment is the appearing of the "Son of Man in heaven," and the sounding trumpet, and the sending the angels to gather the dead together,2 which only immediately precede the judgment scene. All representations referring to the mode of Christ's second coming make it to be a surprise, from its being unheralded by any indications. "Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh."3 "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise." 4 4. THE JUDGE WILL APPEAR IN GREAT MAJESTY. In this respect the second coming of Christ strongly contrasts with the manner of his first appearance. All manifestations of weakness, poverty, suffering, and degradation have forever passed away, and the exhibitions of great splendor, terrible majesty, and glorious authority are made. All judgment is committed to the Son; and he is "ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead; "6 and he comes in fitting honor 1 Matt. xxiv. 34. 2 Matt. xxiv. 30. 42 Pet. iii. 10; see also 1 Thess. v. 2, 3. John v. 22 and 27. Matt. xxv. 13. 6 Acts x. 42. |