to life, added: " and he has commanded us to preacr , and to testify to the people, that this is he, who was appointed of God to be the judge of the living and the dead." [1]
The Sacred Scriptures also inform us, that the general judgment shall be preceded by these three principal signs, the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world, a defection from the faith, and the coming of Antichrist. " This Gospel of the kingdom," says our Lord, " shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall come the consummation." [2] The apostle also admonishes us that we be not seduced by any one, "as if the day of the Lord were at hand; for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition," [3] the judgment will not come.
The form and procedure of this judgment the pastor will easily learn from the oracles of Daniel, [4] the writings of the Evangelists and the doctrine of the Apostle. The sentence, also, to be pronounced by the judge, is here deserving of more than ordinary attention. Looking to the just standing on his right, with a countenance beaming with joy, the Redeemer will pronounce sentence on them, with the greatest benignity, in these words: " Come ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world." [5] That nothing can be conceived, more delightful to the ear than these words, we shall comprehend, if we only compare them with the sentence of condemnation to be hurled against the wicked; and call to mind, that by them the just are invited from labour to rest, from the vale of tears to the mansions of joy, from temporal misery to eternal happiness, the reward of their works of charity.
Turning next to those who shall stand on his left, he will pour out his justice on them in these words: " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." [6] These first words, " depart from me," express the heaviest punishment with which the wicked shall be visited their eternal banishment from the sight of God, unrelieved by one consolatory hope of recovering so great a good. This divines call " the pain of loss," because in hell, the wicked shall be deprived of the light of the vision of God. [7] The words " ye cursed," which are added, must augment to an extreme degree, their wretched and calamitous condition. If when banished from the Divine presence, they could hope for blessing of any sort, it might be to them some source of consolation; but deprived of every such expectation that could alleviate calamity, the divine justice, whose severity their crimes have provoked, pursues them with every species of malediction. The words, " into everlasting fire," which follow, express another sort of punishment, called by Divines " the pain of sense; because, like other corporal punishments, amongst which, no doubt, fire produces the most
