and with stating as conjecture whatever has not Divine autho- rity for its support. If we go beyond this, we render the record itself questionable, by adding to it our own conceits, and loading it with circumstances not clearly revealed. It is sufficient for us to know, that both the one event and the other shall assuredly take place, and that when the Lamb has vanquished that idolatrous and bloody power, he will reign over the whole world h, " there being throughout the whole earth but one Lord, and his name One1."]
2. We should look forward to great events to which God's present dispensations are only a prelude —
[The time is surely coming, when the whole world shall be judged, all the wicked being cast down, and all the right- eous exalted, in strict accordance with the prophecy before us. For so has St. John informed us : "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away : and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God : and the books were opened : and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works .... And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fireV On that occasion will all the pomp described in our text be fully realized : " for the Son of Man will come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him ; and he shall sit upon the throne of his glory ; and before him shall be gathered all nations : and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats .... And of these, some shall go away into everlast- ing punishment; but the righteous into life eternal1." To the same effect St. Paul also says, " The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in naming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe111." About this event no diversity of sentiment can arise. It is fast approaching to us all : for though the day of the general judgment is distant, the time for our being individually sum- moned into the Divine presence is near to every one of us. Disease or accident may at any moment carry us to the judg- ment-seat of Christ, and fix our eternal destinies either in heaven or hell, according as we are prepared or unprepared to
h Rev. xvii. 14. i Zech. xiv. 9. k Rev. xx. 11 — 15.
i Matt. xxv. 31, 32, 4G. m 2 Thess. i. 7—10.