nor learn war any more: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."* Perhaps not only moral evil will then cease, but a natural melioration of animals, of climates, and of seasons, will be witnessed and experienced by those, who are so "blessed as to have part in that first resurrection.' And this is one edifying consequence of believing it. Another advantage derivable from it will, perhaps, be an universal diffusion of Gospel Light, and Gospel Truth, throughout the whole world. Lastly, the improved felicities of that era, compared with present blessings, will prepare the good for those still higher and surpassing glories of the celestial state, which after the great and final day, God will bestow on them that love him.

* Isaiah II. 11.

SECTION VII.

In the preceding section was opened to the view of the Christian believer a scene of existence, long, glorious, and happy. Yet such a scene may be denominated only the dawn of a day that will never end; the first link in a chain of being, that extends beyond the power of numbers, and the reach of thought, even to a state unending and full of glory.

For, though at the termination of the Millennium, or thousand years, it is supposed the general judgment will take place, yet is it also supposed that the bodies of the good, who have passed that happy term will "die no more; but become equal to the angels, being the children of God, and of the resurrection ;" of that privileged, blessed resurrection, concerning which we have been speaking.

However exalted in faculty, by fresh accessions of intellectual vigour, and how

ever habituated to the wonderful displays of Omnipotence, during the milleniary period; amazed spectators, no doubt, will be even these "children of God, and of the first resurrection," when the tremendously grand transactions of the great and final day arise before them.

Never, in descanting on the terrors and glories of Almighty Power, never is it more necessary to repress the "airy wing of imagination," than when contemplating the purposes and issues of that inconceivably important day. Nay, in comparing its awfulness and grandeur with every thing that we have seen, with every thing of which we have heard, or with any thing that we have ever experienced, inadequate will be our conceptions of the great reality. We may have beheld stately and magnificent edifices in ruins:-the ruins of a demolished world will then be 'seen! We may have witnessed the last struggles of a fellow-mortal, in the agonies of death-universal nature will then expire! If we have not witnessed, we have heard of cities destroyed by devour

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ing flames-behold! the whole habitable globe will then be consumed by one general conflagration. If, by the kindness of a merciful God, we have not miserably felt, we have fearfully heard of earthquakes in divers places, ingulphing rivers and plains, and the dwellings of men:lo! then will be felt the tremblings and convulsions of the whole world! have witnessed, with delight, the moon walking in brightness, and the sun shining in his strength; the stars adorning the face of the firmament, and the planetary orbs running their course rejoicing: alas! these will then fall from heaven, be turned into darkness, or become as blood! Such are the assurances in that book, of whose awful truths" one jot or one tittle" shall not fail to be accomplished: "Heaven and earth may pass away; but the words of sacred truth shall not pass away." Hear them and let their impression on your hearts be indelible. "Behold! the Lord

cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment!"-" Behold! he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see

him!"--" when the heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up." Texts of this kind might be greatly multiplied; but, as the following pre-figurative vision of St. John comprises the whole, it will supersede the necessity of more copious quotations. "And I beheld, and lo! there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell upon the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when shaken of a mighty wind, and the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places!" Then, specifying the wicked among all ranks and descriptions of men, from unrighteous kings in their palaces, to impious criminals in their dungeon, he speaks of them as seeking to be "hid in dens, and rocks of the mountains, and saying, fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne,