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ing passed into the hands of justice, justice takes her course with them.

Analogous to the general course of nature, this world will run out its course and have an end. The Son of God will then be revealed from heaven in great power, as the resurrection and the life. Victorious over death and the grave, he will call to the dead with a mighty voice-a voice louder than seven thunders rending and quaking the earth, and all that are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. Death can no longer hold them in his cold embrace, for God Almighty calls. The deep silence of the grave will be broken, the slumbers of ages will have an end.

We are not to suppose that the identical particles which constituted the entombed body, will be brought together in the same mode to constitute the resurrection-body;—for it was sown a natural body, it will be raised a spiritual body. But an important relation is to exist between these bodies which have been devoted to sin or to righteousness, and our future spiritual bodies, pertinently represented in the Scriptures under the analogy of the death and resurrection of the vegetable kingdom; which relation will be recognized, when the souls of all the dead shall be clothed upon with spiritual and immortal bodies.

Jesus Christ will then appear on his judgment throne. The blaze of his glory will consume the world; from his face heaven and earth will flee away; the dead, small and great, will stand before him, and every creature will pass the solemn ordeal of a righteous judgment. The records of the divine

Mind will be opened, every man's character will come to light and receive a just reward. They who have by repentance and the fruits of holiness secured a saving interest in Christ, will be welcomed to heaven. with the plaudit, "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." The impenitent will receive the sentence of banishment, "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The separation thus made between the righteous and the wicked, will be eternal! The sentence of the supreme court of the universe is irrevocable, and from it there can be no appeal. Between heaven and hell there is a great gulf fixed, over which there is no passing. He that is righteous will be righteous still, and he that is holy will be holy still.

Other ages and prospects will then open. The righteous will have left behind them all their sorrows, the wicked all their pleasures. While the wicked are experiencing the dreadful retributions of sin in the bitter pains of the second death, the righteous are enjoying the bliss of that heavenly state in which God wipes away all tears from their eyes, and there is no more sorrow nor pain, for the former things have passed

away.

All is over. The history of this world is ended. The harvest is past; the fruits of the earth are gathered into the kingdoms of everlasting retribution.

Such is summarily the system of doctrine, as we understand it, revealed in the sacred Scriptures. It is a perfect system, although it may not at first view so appear on the face of the Bible. So it is in nature.

The promiscuous gatherings of land and water, of rocks and hills, and of the shining orbs above, do not at first seem to promise any system; but the study of a Newton and a La Place has resolved the whole into a system complete and beautiful in all its parts. So the faithful study of the Scriptures discloses a beautiful and harmonious system of revealed truth. These doctrines all agree with each other ;-if one is true, all are true. Take one away, and all fall. Deny the deity of Christ, and atonement, justification by faith, the entire scheme of redemption, falls to the ground. Deny human depravity, and where is regeneration, adoption, sanctification, the distinction between the righteous and the wicked? Deny the sovereignty of God, and where is the foundation for repentance, faith, perseverance, hope? Embrace any one of these great elemental doctrines of Christianity, and hold it firm in its integrity, and soon you see all the correlate doctrines gathering around it and forming a perfect and harmonious whole.

And the great lesson which they unite to teach, in tones of infinite authority, is this, that to fear God and keep his commandments is the whole of man :*Thus do, and whatever else you lose, you will gain the great object of life-you will glorify and enjoy God forever.

Thus does this moral system, like the physical system of the universe, rise in strength and beauty before us, lifting our minds to the same source and directing them to the same glorious end.

Eccl. xii. 13.

CHAPTER XXI.

PROOF OF THE SYSTEM.

HAVING considered the proof of each doctrine separately, let us now consider their proof as a whole.

1. THEY HARMONIZE WITH EACH OTHER. Harmony is the law of truth; disagreement the law of error. Bring a score of truthful witnesses to testify on any subject, and their stories will all agree together. Thus each becomes a witness for all the rest, while they all together become witnesses for each. On the other hand, bring a score of false witnesses to testify, and their stories will be a perfect Babel. Each becomes a witness against all the rest, while they all together become witnesses against each. It were therefore an infinite impossibility to frame a system of false doctrines, on so profound and difficult a subject as religion, to harmonize together. Hence the entire harmony of the evangelical system makes each doctrine a witness for all the others, and all together witnesses for each one ;-just as each stone in an arch helps to support every other stone in it, while the arch as a whole supports all its parts. Now if the proof of each

doctrine is conclusive, viewed separately, how invincible the proof of them when viewed as a harmonious whole.

2. THEY HARMONIZE WITH THE CONSTITUTION "AND COURSE OF NATURE. They are responded by the deep voice of creation, and by all the movements of providence. The whispers of every passing hour declare them true. Bishop Butler, in his invincible Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, has set this argument above the reach of scepticism. If the teachings of nature and providence can be relied upon, if the testimonies of experience are genuine, then these doctrines are true. They accord with facts in the history of the world, with which we are all daily conversant. The more we investigate the laws and operations of nature and providence, the more apparent it is, that all the natural sciences, all the teachings of inductive philosophy, and all the truths of Christianity, pour their united tribute into this same chrystal stream;—the river of God rolling onward with majestic and ever swelling tide to everlasting ages.

3. THEY HARMONIZE WITH THE HUMAN CONSCIENCE. It was by the manifestation of these very truths, that the apostles, both in their lives and teachings, commended themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. From the earliest records of history down to this hour, these doctrines have evinced a moral omnipotence over the human conscience. They have shaken down the firmest scepticism; they have subdued hearts of steel; they have made many a haughty Felix to tremble on his throne. Men that

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