salvation. A book may be a figure; but it can be a figure of nothing but a record; and this record is one in which every idle word, and every cup of cold water given in the name of Christ, is accurately preserved. There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed." They whose names are in the book of life, the penitent, the believing, the renewed in soul, the diligent in well-doing, are recognised as washed from their sins through the blood of the atonement, and as sanctified by the Holy Spirit. They are acquitted for Christ's sake; and the good which they have done receives the recompense which their Lord had promised. They become, as it were, assessors with Him while the more fearful portion of the judgment is transacted. The wicked also of all ages are gathered in one mighty multitude, and await and receive their doom, There, on one side, are patriarchs, prophets, pure priests, and righteous kings, and holy apostles, and a noble army of martyrs; true confessors, patient sufferers, pious champions, venerable recluses, faithful matrons, constant wives, devoted virgins, fervent preachers, diligent teachers, earnest writers, watchful pastors, honest men, upright servants, dutiful children, innocent babes without number, generous bestowers, energetic lovers of their fellow-men, humble men of prayer, conscientious labourers in every private sphere of duty, last who were first, and first who were last; the sower and the reaper, the example and they who followed the example, whole families and companies who had journeyed together; and those who had stood alone, "faithful found among the faithless." There, on the other side, are murderers, and liars, the abominable and the bloody, tyrants and robbers, and adulterers, and extortioners, the drunkard, and the reveller, and the blasphemer, the ravisher, the pirate, the manstealer, the parricide, the bold unbeliever, the false priest, the remorseless persecutor, all that lived to themselves only, all that forgot God, the hypocrite, the proud and hard-hearted, the corrupter and the corrupted, they who sinned always against the Holy Spirit, and they who began well and turned back to perdition. From him who made the pyramid his tomb to him whose bones were torn bare by the wild beasts of the desert, from those who slept with their fathers under the eaves of the village church to those who were floated too and fro, “Full many a score fathom, down deep in the main,” all have appeared again, to part no more, or to part for ever. The separation of the Judge parts them for ever, or for ever unites them; and to Him the righteous come, and from Him the wicked go away. Those who shall be for ever with Him are caught up together, to meet the Lord in the air. The wicked are cast into that lake of fire, which is the second death; that bottomless pit, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. In what part of the universe lie these awful abodes, it may be in vain to conjecture. But it is certain that then, from the bosom of the earth, the flames so long hidden under its volcanoes must burst forth; and the heavens and the earth that are now must pass away with a great noise, and the elements must melt with fervent heat. Fire is the predicted agency; and fire lies waiting in all the secret chambers of nature. The elements, the atmosphere which enwraps the earth, and forms its firmament, or lower heavens, are subject to this agency; and they shall pass, with a tremendous shock and explosion, while under the same mighty agency, the solid globe is transformed. Then, the new heavens and the new earth appear, for which we wait according to His promise. In that lake of fire, death and hell are swallowed up for ever. The corruptible has put on incorruption; the mortal immortality; the last enemy is destroyed; there is no more death. LXVIII Che Second Death. "Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace That comes to all." MILTON. BUT beyond, there remains the second death; and they who would wisely contemplate the end of man must not shrink from sending on their eyes as far as any beams of present light from heaven may penetrate the darkness of hell. The most terrible of all that is feared in death, is its power to lead to everlasting punishment. He who would so look on death that he shall see at last the face of a friend, must learn to look first on death as it can be, to those for whom Christ died in vain. The path to eternal peace must pass within sight of the tremendous portals from which all hope is banished for ever. A soul which is not saved must be lost. A soul which is not by some means purified can but proceed ever onward in iniquity, and therefore in misery. But not only are no means known to us, through which it can be purified after rejecting the Holy Spirit in this life, but it is also distinctly declared that no other means remain, in this life or in the life to come. Were but the Spirit withdrawn from this world, this world would soon be an image of what must be beyond the grave of the wicked, and beyond the resurrection to damnation. Sin, perpetually renewed, and never counteracted, must create perpetual woe; and, in the dominions of a righteous Sovereign, the outward condition will answer to the inward. 66 The state into which the wicked shall in the last day depart, is everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Those angels are reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day;" for that day decides not the doom of men alone. The place is called the valley of Hinnom," "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." It is called, too, the lake of fire and brimstone, where the devil, with the beast and the false prophet, shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." It is called in parables, outer darkness, as if without the joyful palace of the Great King; and from that darkness are heard the sounds of weeping and wailing. In parables, too, it is likened to the sentence. on him who is delivered to the tormentors, or him who is sawn asunder, or him who is cast into prison till he shall pay the uttermost farthing. All which is thus told is little; but all speaks in one deep and solemn tone; a tone which can at times alarm and affright every human spirit. No sorrow is more mournful than that of exclusion from joys which we behold from far; and they who shall be cast out from the kingdom of heaven shall see Abraham and all the faithful entering into the inheritance which themselves have lost. No restraint is more galling than that of the strong prison; and theirs is a prison from which there is not even the most distant hope of release. No pains are more terrible than those with which oriental |