# The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.
OF THE LAST JUDGMENT WHICH IS TO ATTEND THE LORD'S SECOND COMING.
As the corruptions of the Church would necessarily hinder it from performing those spiritual uses in the world for which it was established; and as the Lord has told us that such corruptions would bring it to an end, when a last judgment would be executed,—it now becomes important to the argument we are pursuing, that we should inquire into the nature of that judgment.
In the preceding chapter it was stated that the conditions of the professing Church, especially about a century ago, were such as to answer all the prophetical descriptions which pointed to its close; and, therefore, it was concluded that a last judgment had been executed. Those who have been taught to expect that the scene of that extraordinary event was to be the natural world, will, most likely, view this conclusion with hesitancy and doubt. But as that expectation was not founded on any correct interpretation of the Scriptures, and as it requires for its fulfilment the existence of phenomena which we have seen the Scriptures do not predict, it may be classed in that catalogue of errors by which the Church has been destroyed. The surprise, therefore, which may be felt at our statement, might properly be attached to that expectation. Nature has not to undergo those disruptions at the accomplishment of the last judgment which the Church has commonly supposed. "The earth abideth for ever;" it is no part of the Divine providence to bring about a cessation of the human race; nor is the resurrection of dead material bodies ever the sub​ject of the Divine teaching. Hence the whole ground upon which "the orthodox" have built their doctrine of the last judgment vanishes away. It is the spirits of men that are to be the subject of that judgment, and the world of spirits is to be the scene of it: the time of its execution is when the spirits there accumulated are of such a character as to hinder the influences of heaven from descending into the Church on earth, and when, consequently, the Church must cease to perform the uses for which it was originally established. When clouds interpose and prevent the sunshine from descending, the earth is brought into shadow and obscurity; and if those clouds were never to be dispersed, the result would certainly be unfavourable to its fruitfulness, and injurious to mankind. But of this we shall speak again.
In previous chapters it has been shown that the Lord has frequently come to His Church, in some peculiar way, and that all such comings have been attended with judgment and mercy; the judgment consisting in the removal of those hindrances to human regeneration, which errors in the religious teachings of men had created; and the mercy consisting in the restoration of Divine truth for the acceptance of the people. The judgment has always been indicated by the occurrence of some calamities amongst mankind; the mercy has always been shown by the appearance of reformations in society. The flood was the accomplishment of a judgment upon the most ancient Church, but that disaster was followed by a revival of spiritual life among mankind, and the consequent establishment of another dispensation; that new dispensation, however, in the process of time, sunk into a condition of depravity, and not only was a judgment executed upon it, but mercy was displayed in providing a successor. In the establishment of ​the Jewish economy, a Church of another character was founded, but that also in the course of ages was perverted; men rendered the word of God of none effect, by their traditions, and then the Lord came into the world to execute a judgment upon it, after which the mercy of Christianity was vouchsafed. Jesus, however, foresaw that even Christianity would descend from the eminence on which He planted it; He, therefore, predicted that a judgment would overtake it, and that a new Church would subsequently arise: the former to be rendered evident by the existence of some unhappy circumstances in the world; the latter to be made plain by the display of some superior intelligences among mankind. Thus the Scriptures inform us that Divine judgments have always attended the end of the Churches, and that Divine mercies have always succeeded those judgments. Of these facts, so far as they related to the ancient dispensations, we have already spoken; and now we will endeavour to exhibit the rationale of that judgment which is predicted in reference to Christianity, and which we believe to have been accomplished. The general principle which will guide us in this endeavour will be the same as that which has regulated our interpretation of all the cases which have been considered.
In the first place, the fact must be remembered, that all persons when they die pass from the natural world into the world of spirits: that there is such a world, no Christian can sensibly deny. Men take with them everything that belongs to them as living, thinking beings:—all that is responsible and all that is immortal belonging to their nature. In short, every one rises immediately after death into the world of spirits, with that "spiritual body" which is proper to his existence. That there is such a body the Apostle expressly affirms.
​But all who die are not fitted to pass immediately and directly to their eternal habitations: if they were, there would be no necessity for a judgment. There are, however, other reasons for their detention in the world of spirits. Heaven is a kingdom of the greatest purity: hell is a condition of the utmost depravity: nothing that is defiled can enter into the one, nothing that is virtuous can descend into the other. The virtues of none here are so separated from self as to attain the full standard of that excellence which fits the soul for heaven; nor are the vices of any one here so unchecked as to sink them at once into all the atrocities of hell. If, however, any do attain to either of these respective conditions during their lifetime in the world, they will, of course, at once become the subject of the judgment, and pass on to that destiny for which they are so thoroughly prepared. Such cases, however, are rare; they are not, they never have been, the general experience of our fallen race. All are, to some extent, a mixture of good and evil; in some, the good preponderates, in some the evil: the separation of these, and the attainment of a fulness of state by that which is predominant in every individual is the work of judgment. But every one, during his lifetime in the world, forms to himself a character which leans either to the world of woe or to the kingdom of bliss. The good which may adhere to those who are mainly evil, which is only an external good, will hinder them from sinking all at once into the miseries of the lost; and the evil which may cling to those who are mainly good, which is only an external evil, will prevent them from rising at once into all the beatitudes of the saved. These are the circumstances to which the Lord referred when He said, "Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be ​known and come abroad: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have." From these considerations we learn what it is that detains spirits in the world of spirits; and, consequently, how it is that they accumulate in that region of the departed. The whole of the phenomena of which we have been treating, naturally arise out of what are known to be the characteristics of mankind, and it is as such that the Lord deals with them in the case of every individual. He does not suddenly strip away the vices which may adhere to the good; nor does He hastily take away the virtues which may remain with the wicked. Though the final destiny of all is fixed by that which is predominant in them, the Lord regards and treats them as responsible creatures following the bent of their inclinations. This bent, having fixed upon them a condition in which good or evil has obtained the ascendancy, will continue with them in the world of spirits, until everything contrary to the ruling love be entirely removed; and then those who have lived wickedly will of themselves descend into hell, and those who have lived wisely will be elevated into heaven by the Lord. This is distinctly taught by these words, "They that have done good" shall come forth "unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." The case of those who are inwardly and outwardly good is represented by Lazarus, who, on death, was soon after conducted by the angels into Abraham's bosom: and the case of those who are inwardly and outwardly evil is represented by Dives, who, on death, soon after lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torments. Judgment, under those circumstances, is readily effected, because the ​full state of the parties who are its subjects are so nearly completed, that they eagerly accept or reject "the Word" which "judgeth," and so pass on to that eternal destiny for which they are prepared.
Judgement, of course, means discrimination and decision upon what is good and evil, true and false, in the spiritual life of man. These are effected by comparing human character with the Divine law, by which right is declared and wrong is denounced. This being so, all the Lord's judgments will be conducted upon the principle of comparing the interior lives of those who are judged with the Word He has revealed. Respecting this point. He has spoken with great decision. "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day;" consequently, those who have received "the Word" with willingness and love will have in them those principles of life to which the Lord can be conjoined, agreeably to His own declaration: "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." It is very plain that such persons, on passing into the world of spirits, will soon be elevated into heaven. But those who have not so received the Word, have not those principles of spiritual life to which the Lord can be conjoined; therefore, on their entrance into the world of spirits they will very soon sink down to hell. This also is agreeable to the Lord's saying: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered." With every one, the process of judgment is the same. Men who have conformed to the Divine Word will be adopted and saved; those who have not so conformed will be rejected and lost. But the time they remain in the world of spirits will be ​more or less extended, as the amount of good and evil in them approaches to a balance; in this case the power to hold the ascendancy obtained is weakened upon both sides, and this causes the period for a judgment on their destiny to be prolonged.
But let us look at those points a little closer. It is evident from what has been advanced that the last Judgment is an event to be experienced by spirits of a peculiar class. Before that time many will have experienced their judgment and gone on to their eternal homes; of this several cases are related in the Word: those of Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory at the period of the Lord's transfiguration, being illustrious examples. Hence it is evident that those who were subjects of the last judgment had some peculiarity of character. They were not the eminently wise, for these had before gone on to heaven; they were not the notoriously wicked, for these had before sunk down to hell; they, therefore, must have been some other class. The Lord calls them the sheep and the goats. Speaking of this circumstance, He said, "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 He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left." By "all nations" are meant every variety of good and of evil which can dwell together by the acknowledgment of some common principle, like a nation with a king. These, on being separated by a disruption of the bond that had united them, were called ​the sheep and the goats, to teach us that the former were in states of charity without truth, and that the latter were in the possession of truth without charity. The non-possession of truth on the part of the sheep would, for a time, keep them out of heaven, and the possession of truth on the part of the goats would keep them out of hell, and so both classes would remain in the world of spirits. It was, then, spirits of this description who became the subjects of the last judgment. The wheat and the tares grew together until the harvest.
They had for a long period been accumulating in the spiritual world, owing to the declining influence of a falling Church, until at last the influences in favour of goodness ​became endangered, and then, because they intercepted the light of heaven in the process of its descent into the human mind, the crisis came. Other judgments had before taken place, but this is called the last, because it terminated the dispensation with which those spiritual disasters had been connected. The sheep would be elevated into heaven, because, being separated from the goats, the good which they possessed would enable them to accept the truth. The goats would pass off to hell, because, being separated from the sheep, and having no good, they would not be enabled to retain the truth they had accepted. It was from these that the greater danger came, and it was the spread of their iniquity that brought on the judgment which consigned them to their eternal homes. By that event a way has been prepared for the renewal of spiritual life in the Church, and the promotion of its intelligence among mankind. This, consequently, is the jadgment which we believe to have transpired; but we will consider the evidences of its occurrence a little more at large.
That certain spirits are detained in the world of spirits until the period of a judgment is very clearly taught in the Word. Peter tells us of those who "sometime were disobedient, in the days of Noah," and who, from that time, had remained in that region of the departed until the resurrection of the Lord. John, also, tells us that he "saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain," that they inquired about the continuance of their condition, and were told that they had yet to rest for a little season. The Lord very clearly informs us, in His parable of the tares and the wheat, that some who are good and some who are evil, as to their interior loves, will be detained in the world of spirits until the time of the last judgment should arrive. ​His words are, "Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn." It is thus plain that both the good and the evil are reserved in the world of spirits until the coming of the great day. To this view of the case no reasonable objection can be urged; for even those who consider that the last judgment will be attended with a resurrection of material bodies, must see that some place will be necessary in which the souls of all the dead should remain until that event. The reason, however, for such detention is to be sought for in the mixed characters of men at the time of death. And this is a state of things towards which the condition of the Church contributes. For, notwithstanding men are preserved in freedom, and in this freedom form their character, the result is always influenced by the teachings of the Church to which they belong. In proportion as those teachings depart from the purity of truth, so far will the good of the people, which it is established to promote, be diminished. All who are under the influence of such circumstances will have a prolonged existence in the world of spirits. So that in the process of time a perverted Church, through not encouraging goodness in its people, endangers its equilibrium, and thus causes the detention in the world of spirits of multitudes of those who die within its pale. Hence we read of "multitudes in the valley of decision." Errors in the Church permit evils to grow up, and to permeate society, until at length this first region for the reception of departed men becomes the scene of sad corruptions, ​which are there because they were the interior vices of the deceased during their life-time here, but which were hypocritically concealed for the sake of gain, or reputation, or some other selfish purpose. As this goes on, the wicked spirits in whom those vices exist come to infest society on earth, each acts and reacts upon the other; and the final result of the accumulation of wicked spirits in the world of spirits is, that they obstruct the descent of heavenly influences to men, and close their minds against the acceptance of genuine truth and goodness. When this takes place it is plain that the end of the Church has come, and, consequently, the time of the last judgment must have arrived. It is spoken of as the last judgment, to intimate that others have preceded it, others both of an individual and more general kind; if it were not so, that which is commonly called the last would really be the first. Those others, to which we are now referring, were not those which occurred at the end of the Adamic and Israelitish periods, but those which have been experienced under the Christian dispensation. The end of a Church has always been attended by the execution of a last judgment upon the souls of those who have gone into the world of spirits infected with the worst corruptions of the Church to which they belonged, and so have stood in the way, hindering the beneficence of heaven from operating upon their survivors in the world.
Thus we learn what must be the condition of the world of spirits, when the necessity arrives for a final judgment upon perverted Christianity. The inhabitants of that world will gradually have usurped a power over the minds of men, and have infested them with all sorts of disorderly persuasions. They will have hindered spiritual light in the process of its descent, beclouded its character, and so ​have prevented its reception among mankind. Hence the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven; for the prediction of these things denotes the obscuration of love, the termination of faith, and the destruction of intelligence proper to the Church.
Every one may see, as this state of things goes on from generation to generation, that the intensity of its mischiefs will be successively increased, and that it must result in a crisis which will necessitate a judgment to disperse the evil spirits which have been its cause, and so prepare the way for the amendment of society in the world.
As spirits and men mutually act and react upon each other (a doctrine of the Scriptures admitted upon all hands) it will follow that the state of the world of spirits, will, in some measure, be reflected in the condition of the world of men. If all things were orderly and enlightened in society on earth, it would not be reasonable to infer that all things were irregular and obscure in the spiritual world with which it is associated. But if men are found to be in a corrupted condition, careless about heavenly things, and pursuing all kinds of selfish and sensual loves with relish and delight, it would be reasonable to conclude that something very similar prevailed in the world of spirits, with which such society is connected; for it is a great law that they act upon, and reflect the condition of each other.
When, then, we assert that a disastrous condition of the world of spirits had been arrived at, about a century ago, and that then was the period in which the last judgment was performed, the truth of these assertions does not rest merely upon any verbal authority which may be claimed for them; if true, there must be some corroborative evidence in the history of professedly Christian society at that ​period. A general law upon this subject has been clearly revealed in Scripture history. When the last judgment took place upon the most ancient Church, "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil continually." When the last judgment was executed upon the Jewish dispensation, its professors in the world had sunk into the deepest hypocrisy; they were of their father, the devil, and the works of their father they would do. So it is found that when the time came for executing the last judgment upon perverted Christianity, the condition of society was a reflex of its spiritual corruptions. This is in strict accordance with the Divine predictions on the subject: for although these predictions, in their internal sense, refer to a cessation of those graces which are proper to the Church, it is plain that such cessation would be manifested in the outer lives and characters of the people: for spiritual causes produce natural effect in correspondence with themselves.
There are, then, and always have been, peculiar conditions in society, when remarkable providential epochs were about to occur. Extraordinary circumstances taking place amongst men, have, by the observant, always been regarded as the indications of something remarkable occurring in their spiritual states. The experience of calamities is commonly interpreted as the visitation of a judgment, and this view is not entirely destitute of truth: they may, ​however, be also regarded as symptoms of its necessity and premonitions of its occurrence.
That about a century ago, the principles of true religion and the sentiments of genuine morality had not simply come to a standstill, but were in a state of disruption in all ranks of society, is a fact which no one acquainted with the history of the times will venture to deny. That, as we have said, we consider to have been the time, and that disruption, to have been the occasion, for executing that last judgment which is predicted in the Gospels and represented in the Revelation. But before going farther into these explanations, it may be useful to refer to other judgments which have taken place under the Christian dispensation, prior to that which is designated the last: and these, no doubt, contributed to postpone the accomplishment of this final catastrophe: they checked the progress of events, which were accelerating the end, and, like the circumstance represented by the shadow going back on the sun-dial of Ahaz, deferred the time of consummation.
The state of the Lord's Church, with men is the test of the world's morality. The Church is the channel for the ​orderly descent of all spiritual instruction and life to men. When this channel is stopped, which it may be by the love of dominion, greatness, riches, or any other worldly delight, these blessings are interrupted in their course; and then some judgment, to remove the cause, must be executed before that channel can be reopened for their descent. Now such a stoppage and such a removal have occurred more than once during the history of the Christian Church. The phenomena attending all such remarkable events are represented to us by that wonderful scenery in the world of spirits which is described in many chapters of the Apocalypse.
Every one knows that defections in the Church broke out in the apostolic era. They are spoken of several times in the epistles, with a view to their correction. And John, in his addresses to the seven Churches in Asia, enumerates the faults and backslidings of which each were guilty; nor are there any indications that those failings were removed. This falling away was accompanied by the increase of a variety of errors, while the love of dominion, during several generations, grew with amazing luxuriance and strength. The dogmata which had been enacted by the Council of Nice in the fourth century, were, in the fifth, succeeded by a new distress. A quarrel, which for some time had been fermenting, now broke out between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome. The object of this dispute was, who should be the greatest: each had his partisans, and each had large territories to govern, with extensive jurisdiction. The Emperors of the east supported the Patriarch, those of the west maintained the pretensions of Rome; and the result was that first great division, known in the history of Christianity as the separation of the Greek from the Latin Church. In doctrine they ​were nearly identical; but in order that the ambitions in each might reign with diminished force, the Divine providence permitted them to divide; this or a greater calamity was the only alternative. The Patriarch cast out the Pope, and the Pope excommunicated the Patriarch. In those contentions violent passions were evoked, and multitudes were affected by the mischiefs they produced; truth was sacrificed upon the altar of mutual recrimination, and charity, without which there can be no useful religion, was dragged from her pedestal and lost amidst the confusion which prevailed. This separation was followed, not by any abandonment of the animosities which had been raised, but by the restoration of a political quiet. Doubtless these facts indicate the execution of a judgment: by that means the Lord, in His providence, dispersed certain ambitious principles and projects which had been carried into the spiritual world, through the decease of a succession of ecclesiastical tyrants and their abettors.
What are called "the dark ages" followed. Those periods continued to provide for the world of spirits a multitude of inhabitants who, with strong love of self and of the world, had but imperfect ideas of God, and faint perceptions of duty towards Him. These, in their turn, would encourage the development of perversity in men; and it is well known that it was the successive increase and growth of base principles and scandalous practices in the Church, which led to the adoption of those enormities against which Luther and his compatriots so heartily protested. By the defiant attitude which they assumed, and the noble exertions which they made, the whole Christian world was thrown into a commotion, aiming at better things. The result was a restoration of some of the advantages which had been lost; for besides the liberty of pro​testantism that was evoked, a wholesome restraint was imposed upon the despotism of Catholicism which remained.
Now, who will venture to say that the Divine providence had nothing to do with those events? Can any evil be thrown down which Infinite Mercy has not helped to overthrow? Can there be any blessing in the city which the Lord has not wrought? From the facts that certain evil influences were then removed from the Church, and that several beneficent advantages resulted, it is plain that some causes of the evil must have been removed, or the effects observable in the blessing never could have been realized. But where did those causes exist and operate? Whatever places they might have had in the minds of men as a secondary habitation, there can be no doubt that their primary residence was with spirits in the world of spirits, and therefore, the Lord, in order to afford some relief to the people of His Church, must have removed them by the execution of a judgment. By whom else could they be removed? by whom else could the blessing which followed the removal be provided? Do not the existence of these facts prove that a judgment must have been accomplished? To us it seems impossible to deny this conclusion without first renouncing the Christian principles concerning the existence of a world of spirits, and man's connection with it. Of course we know that it has not been usual to trace such events to so deep a cause, nor to characterize them with so marked a providence; still every one who will carefully reflect upon the calamitous periods of the Church, must see that their causes lie in the disordered spiritual life of her people, who, after death, are collected in the world of spirits, and thence exercise an injurious influence on those remaining in the world. To bring them to judgment is a subject ​of great importance to the Church below; because it separates them from that hold which they had taken upon the human mind in the world, and provides for the restoration of a purer teaching for the acceptance of mankind.
The distresses which have alarmed the Church, and the successes by which she has been encouraged, may be reasonably taken as so many evidences in the natural world that some remarkable phenomena have taken place in the spiritual. Such external effects must have had internal causes. It has indeed been usual to ascribe such events to the mental disposition and character of the age in which they have occurred, and to this conclusion no fair objection can be urged; but beyond this there is a source which the above view does not contemplate. The minds of men are not self-created things, nor are their activities wholly dependent upon themselves. The Scriptures certainly lead us to conclude that our evil states are the results of wicked influences to which we have yielded, and also that every favourable condition has been the result of heavenly guidance; and experience confirms what revelation unfolds. What is thus true of individuals is also true of the mass, for multitudes are composed of units: the general state arises from the collective condition of individuals. It is therefore evident that the moral aspects of mankind are, at all periods of their history, indications of the state and quality of the spiritual world with which they are associated: an epoch of danger and distress in the Church is, therefore; clearly referable to some malevolent influence acting upon ​the people; whilst an era of prosperity and intelligence is as certainly to be ascribed to the operation of some beneficent guidance descending from on high. Hence it may be clear that the affliction by which the Church has been darkened, upon the one hand, and the prosperities by which it has been blessed, on the other, indicate the existence of corresponding spiritual influences from the spiritual world; and, therefore, the abatement of an evil by which it has been distressed, and the display of mercies by which it has been encouraged, may be viewed as evidences of a judgment and a coming of the Lord;—a coming of the Lord personally into the world of spirits, in the first place, to execute the judgment, and then spiritually into the natural world to effect the blessings for which that judgment has prepared the way. We cannot tell how far these views may commend themselves to the ordinary reader; but to us they seem to be full of reason, full of truth, to have the testimony of history in their favour, as well as the sanction of revelation. To doubt them, appears to us like questioning the reality of experience, and the depositions of the Word. However, these facts and considerations point to the kind of evidence by which we purpose to show that the last judgment, of which the Scriptures treat, has really been accomplished. But before proceeding more directly to that evidence, there is one circumstance, important to our argument, which should be carefully observed.
Although the occasion for a judgment in the world of spirits may be strongly indicated by the decline of religious intelligence and virtue among mankind, and although the execution of it will certainly be followed by a resuscitation of spiritual intelligence in the Church, yet the first result of such judgment, with the generation in whose lifetime it occurs, will not be their recognition of the fact, nor ​their participation in its advantages. The judgment, indeed, clears away the malevolent spirits from the hold which they have obtained upon people in the world, but before this, they will have impressed their principles upon them, and these principles will not be suddenly abandoned by mankind. The branch, when severed from the tree, does not instantly lose its greenness, or relinquish its sap; it is indeed separated from the stock on which it grew, but some indications of its having possessed vitality will be retained for a time. So those persons living at the epoch of a judgment, although cut off by that event from their previous associates in the world of spirits, do not at once renounce the principles they have imbibed, nor forsake the practices to which those principles lead. Therefore, some of the previous disorders will remain with that generation of men; and, indeed, their reproduction in various forms may be expected in some of their immediate descendants. Hence it was that after the last judgment upon the most ancient Church, great calamities followed in the destruction of the people. After the last judgment upon the Jewish Church, how appalling were the disasters which rolled in upon Jerusalem, Judæa, and the surrounding countries. So after the judgment which broke up the first league of a terrible ambition in the Christian Church, there ensued, both in the eastern and western branches of it, a great variety of evils, ecclesiastical and national; and who has not heard of the revolts, invasions, and consequent sufferings, which occurred in Europe, and of the "Thirty Years' War," just preceding that period, when we believe a judgment to have occured, and to have resulted in the Reformation.
The continuance, then, for some time after the period of a judgment, of disastrous circumstances similar to those ​which have been the cause of it, do not at all interfere with the evidences of its execution. Uncommon disorders in the Church, and in the conduct of the people, certainly point to the necessity for such a deliverance, but they prove nothing concerning its accomplishment. The evidence for that is to be sought for in those new advantages which soon afterwards break in upon society, notwithstanding the obstructions which have been thrown in their way by the hereditary evils, disordered loves, national prejudices, and the selfish interests of mankind.
As all changes in the causes of things must necessarily be attended with new effects, so it will follow that any great changes which may take place in the world of spirits,—and who will say that such changes cannot occur?—must be succeeded by some corresponding mutations in the world of men. They will primarily affect the interior of men's minds, these being of a spiritual nature; and subsequently they will act upon the natural affairs of men in the world, that being their ultimate purpose. Consequently, a judgment in the world of spirits must induce a change in its spiritual action upon mankind; and this must be followed with some alteration in their condition and proceedings in the world, which will display itself in a twofold manner.
First,—As we learn from Scripture history has been the case under all similar circumstances,—there will be a display of unusual dissensions and troubles, especially among the nations in which the Church has professedly existed; and Secondly, amidst the absorbing interests which those calamities will induce, there will be the unfolding of a variety of ameliorating circumstances tending to show that there is some beneficent sunlight breaking through those clouds of darkness by which the nations have been distressed.
​That phenomena of this description have occurred within the last century every one must acknowledge. They are matters of common notoriety. No doubt the extraordinary troubles, which within that time have arisen in Europe, and more or less inflicted suffering upon the whole civilized world, were occasioned by the evils which prevailed; for a long time they had been festering and undermining the welfare of society; but then a period came in which their consequences affected the world to an extent and with a fatality unprecedented in the annals of the human race. Surely affairs involving the commission of so much wickedness, and the endurance of so much suffering, must have had an infernal origin. The tree is to be known by its fruit. The malignant principles and sentiments which the inhabitants of the world of spirits had been so long and so forcibly insinuating into the human mind, rushed out into open violence when the time arrived for the judgment of those spirits: and is it not reasonable to conclude that the afflictions which the world experienced represented the miserable condition to which those spirits had been condemned? May they not be regarded as the effects of the activities and infestation of a spiritual tyranny which judgment overthrew? To what other adequate causes can they be assigned? To say that they were merely the outbirths of vicious minds is no sufficient answer; for it is plain that all minds are operated upon in their determination, by influences more interior than themselves, which, however, they have always the freedom to examine and control.
The principles which led to those terrible results had been growing up in society for a considerable period. The interiors of the whole Christian world had been thrown into a condition of disaster and confusion. In a preceding chapter it was shown that all the circumstances which the ​Lord foretold would be the occasion for His second coming had really transpired: that there was no stone of the temple—no truth of the Church—which had not been thrown down. The Church maintained a profession indeed, because of the worldly interests that had clustered around it: "For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together;" but it had ceased to be a spiritual institution. Heaven had become dim and distant in their eyes, and the world was regarded as the only reality. Great numbers of the clergy were indifferent spectators of the vices of the people, and sought relaxation in the coarsest pleasures. The courts of Europe were seats of sensuality in every form: most of the kings were infidels; the national governments were political corruptions; statesmen were place-hunters, drunkards, and gamblers; these vices were not confined to the men; women participated in this deplorable profligacy. Libertinism and profane swearing were esteemed the indication of manhood and the characteristics of gentlemen; and a wide-spread infidelity, both within the Church and without it, finally displayed itself in France, by the public renunciation of Christianity, the abolition of the Sabbath, and the exalting of what was called Reason, as a god. The Archbishop of Paris, followed by his clergy, carried the Scriptures, and other works connected with Divine worship, and burnt them in the public market-place. These were only the miserable results of a spiritual iniquity that had long been festering. But space will not permit us to dwell upon the decay of all that was good and true in religion, life, and manners, which then prevailed. It is written in history, and distinctly spoken of by authorities which no one can dispute. Bishop Burnet, in a pastoral charge, in 1713, said, "I see the imminent ​ruin hanging over the Church, and by consequence, over the whole Reformation. The outward state of things is bad enough. God knows; but that which heightens our fears rises chief from the inward state into which we have unhappily fallen. I will, in examining this, confine myself to the clergy." In 1736, Bishop Butler said, "It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much a subject of inquiry: but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious. And assuredly, they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point amongst people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule." In 1738, Archbishop Secker declared that "An open and professed disregard to religion is become, through a variety of unhappy causes, the distinguishing character of the present age. Indeed, it hath already brought in such dissoluteness and contempt of principle, in the higher parts of the world, and such profligate intemperance, and fearlessness of committing crimes in the lower, as must, if this mighty torrent of impiety stop not, become absolutely fatal. And God knows, far from stopping, it receives, through the designs of some persons, and the inconsiderateness of others, a continual increase." In 1731, Dr. Watts remarks, "Nor is the complaint of the dissolution of virtue and piety made only by Protestant dissenters: it is a general matter of mournful observation amongst all that lay the cause of God to heart; and therefore, it cannot be thought amiss for every one to use all just and proper efforts for the recovery of dying religion in the world."
​Mr. Paterson, treating of the "Tendencies of religious thought in England, 1688—1750," says, "The historian of moral and religious progress is under the necessity of depicting this period as one of decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of language—a day of 'rebuke and blasphemy,'—it was an age destitute of depth or earnestness; an age whose poetry was without romance, whose philosophy was without insight, and whose public men were without character; an age of 'light without love,' whose 'very merits were of the earth, earthy.' "" Bishop Ken, more than a century and a half ago, in his'" "Expostularia," speaking of the clergy, said, "Alas, alas! for your debauched courses; a holy calling and an unholy life; servants of God, yet slaves of sin; reverend in your functions, yet shameful in your practice; a minister, and yet given to wine; a priest, and yet lascivious; in holy orders, and yet in riotous assemblies." The Rev. J. C. Ryle, speaking of the state of preaching in the English Church a century ago, tells us that "The celebrated lawyer, Blackstone, had the curiosity, early in the reign of George the Third, to go from church to church, to hear every clergyman of note in London. He says that he did not hear a single discourse which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero; and that it would have been impossible for him to discover, from what he heard, whether the preacher were a follower of Confucius, of Mahomet, or of Christ." The Hon. and Rev. B. W. Noel, writing of the clergy so recently as twenty years ago. says, "The children of patrons and of rich capitalists, of bishops and of clergymen, recruit the ranks of the elergy, not so much because they have given themselves up to the service ​of Christ and of their fellow-creatures, as because they have not the ability for law or medicine, nor spirit enough for the army and navy, nor capital enough for commerce, nor income enough to lead an idle life."
There is, then, unquestionable evidence for the truth of this mournful picture of society and of the Church, during the preceding century, which we have attempted to draw. The broad outline might have been filled in with more detail, and the whole might have received a more distinctive colouring, but the general sketch presented is sufficient for our purpose: it points out some of the principles which underlay the history of the times to which we are referring.
The evils, however, which then prevailed, and which were uprooting the welfare of mankind, have been long abating; some of their most flagrant forms have passed away, and there can be no doubt that an extraordinary change has taken place among the people since that period. Every one who will take up the history of the last century and compare it with the annals of the present, will at once perceive that some mighty change has been accomplished; that some desolating cause has been removed, and some new influences set to work. We do not here so much refer to those common advantages which are everywhere surrounding us, as to that blow by which it is certain a great variety of public evils have been struck down;—evils which were rampant in society, and generally connived at by our ancestry a few generations ago. The vices which distinguished the reigning courts; the tyranny of governments; the corruption of Parliaments; the intemperance of statesmen; the sanguinary character of the laws; the corruption of the Church, the looseness of its clergy, their open simony, ​and utter neglect of the education of the people; the cruel discipline of prisons; the villany of the slave trade; the wild iniquity of the navy; the coarse indulgences of the army; the savage sports of the people; the common infidelity, the general drunkenness, the profane swearing; with many other enormities which could be named,—all belonged to that hideous inventory of public degradation by which the safety of all spiritual life was endangered. But all those shameful things have received a blow: they may not all be dead, but they are all now held up to public scorn; and wherever any of their progeny are discovered, an attempt is made to restrain their wickedness.
​Such, then, being the case, we ask by whom this blow was struck, where was the scene of it, and by what means has the blow produced those extraordinary results? Some will say, men began to see the evils because they began to feel their consequences, and thereupon they determined to apply a remedy. Certainly, but what enabled them to take such cognisance of their position? A philanthropist here, and a moralist there, drew attention to the misfortunes which prevailed, and suggested means of improvement. True; but whence did these men draw their inspirations? and by what power was the effort after amendment carried out? No one who professes to be a Christian will for a moment suppose that those abilities were self-created things; all know that every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of light: the Lord is the primary source of every advantage that is enjoyed by mankind: He therefore must have restrained those causes which had induced that disordered condition of society to which we have referred, and, by removing them, His final judgment of them must have been declared. But what were those causes? The answer has been given; and we repeat our belief that they were evil spirits in the world of spirits, who had, as it were, intrenched themselves in ​the evil dispositions of mankind, and urged them on to those enormities which history has recorded. The cessation of effects can only be accounted for by a withdrawal of their causes. When, therefore, those evils are in the process of being abated, it is plain that their causes are removed; and, to effect this, they must have been subjected to a judgment. The evils which remain may be regarded as echoes of the disruption that has been accomplished. Society does not acknowledge nor connive at them; the public face is utterly against them; and the reason is because their spiritual causes have been removed. The sensual may shake their heads over these facts; professors of the Church may turn away from these conclusions; the world may hesitate to accept them; but all this scepticism leaves the Christian logic of the case in full possession of the field.
No one who accepts the Bible for his guide will ever venture to affirm that any moral results can take place among mankind which have not their origin in some spiritual cause. And we explain the abolition of the public evils which prevailed throughout the Christian world a century ago, by asserting that their causes were broken up in the spiritual world by the Lord having then executed a judgment upon them. We affirm that this event transpired about the middle of the last century; that the world of spirits was the scene of it; that the spirits of departed men, who were there collected, became the subjects of it; and that some of the results of that phenomenon have since been manifested in the world of men. The results are certain the existence of men as spirits in the world of spirits after natural death is equally certain; and the circumstance that those spirits exercise an influence of some sort upon their survivors upon the earth is plainly taught us in the Word. It is clear, then, that when those ​causes have brought about a dangerous crisis in the affairs of men, the perils which they threaten can only be prevented by means of a judgment. And surely, when events transpire in society which show that evil causes must have been dispersed, we have demonstration that a judgment must have been performed. This, then, is the case submitted to the consideration of the reader; the judgment which we believe to have taken place about the middle of the last century consisted in the removal of abandoned spirits from the world of spirits, and thus in a breaking up of the malevolent influences which they exercised on men. We appeal to the altered condition of society as a proof of that occurrence.
This judgment was declared to have taken place before any evidences of such a fact could transpire among mankind, and in the very midst of circumstances requiring such a remedy. Since that time the evidences have come; and does not this also prove the preternatural origin of that announcement? If reasoning can conduct to a satisfactory conclusion, surely this may be accepted. Men have been accustomed to look forward to this judgment as an event which was to overthrow the universe, because that has been the opinion of the Church. The prophecies upon the subject have been darkened by that misrepresentation, and hence mankind have been led to expect what the Scriptures were never intended to teach. This event, though very extraordinary in itself, was not intended to destroy the natural world, but to restore order in the spiritual world. It was, as it were, the removing of a cloud that had darkened the Church, and providing a sunshine by which to illuminate its future progress. And this, like all the orderly providences of God, was accomplished without being immediately recognised in the world of men; though it ​rendered them partakers of the advantages derived from it. Of this idea the prophet has furnished us with a remarkable illustration. It is written, "My people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: but the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness." Here it is declared that the corruptions of the Church had brought it into desolation; knowledge had gone, honour had perished, and the result was that hell, that is hades, became enlarged; thereupon a judgment was to be executed; and the exaltation of the Lord would follow. This is the order of such events, as presented to us both by the Scriptures and history.
The Lord distinctly taught that His second coming would take place as a thief in the night, thus that it would not be a phenomenon among men, having the publicity of daylight, yet it would be one that would cause itself to be acknowledged by results which would follow. So that the accomplishment of this event implies a twofold purpose in the Divine coming; first, His manifestation in the world of spirits by the judgment which occurred; and second, His manifestation in the world of men by the improved condition of society. Thus, personally in the one, but influentially in the other.
Among the earliest evidences which the world had of this judgment—evidences indicating the desperation of the ​evil spirits—were those fearful hostilities which broke out, not only in Europe, but in every other portion of the world where a community of professing Christians existed. In those fearful events the Churches took an odious part, and infidelity avowed its wretched principles. Wars, indeed, had previously been waged during the history of Christianity; and no doubt they were indications of some spiritual wickedness in high places. Wars could not exist, if wickedness did not promote them. But those wars which followed upon the last judgment were not upon that limited scale which distinguished their predecessors; they affected with their desolations every portion of the Christian world. Wherever Christianity was professed, there war placed his iron foot, and trod out some of the nations from the earth. "Nation rose against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there were famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places; the distress of nations, men's hearts failing them for fear." Professing Christians let loose upon each other the demons of military carnage: in ​their violence they seemed to have forgotton that there is a Prince of peace; they disregarded His injunction, and gave up all practical interest in the peaceful principles of the Gospel. Surely events like these must have originated in some great convulsion taking place in the world of spirits—a convulsion which was consigning the wicked to their terrible destination, and manifesting the fact to the natural world in the calamities referred to.
Distresses like these have always been among the first evidences to men that a judgment has taken place. A judgment was executed by the Lord at His first advent, and how fearful were the sufferings which befel the people who professedly had formed the Church! Before that time instances of a similar character had transpired, and who can doubt that they were all intended to teach us principles by which to interpret the predictions in which the last judgment is announced? When, however, those visitations have accomplished their vastating purposes among mankind, we find that a new and improved condition has followed. Amendment of society and useful progress are among the secondary evidences by which men may be assured that a judgment has been accomplished. To what other intelligible cause can be adequately referred the advantages which distinguish the age in which we live? Each class of evidence is spoken of in the Scriptures in connection with the judgments they reveal. We believe they were intended to teach us how to interpret the last judgment that is predicted, as well as how to understand the origin of the phenomena by which we are, in the present day, surrounded. The extent of the distresses which ​were experienced upon the one hand, and the universality of the advantages which are in course of being developed upon the other, are well known and extraordinary. Those wars, in accordance with the natural tendency of evil, wore themselves out. Following every convulsion, a milder spirit endeavoured to find its way into the minds of men, and when peace came, the new era that had begun manifested to the world that henceforth goodness would be supreme. The escutcheon of the period was, and still may be, tarnished with disastrous stains, but those stains have been, and we believe always will be, local in their origin and operations; nor can they ever extinguish the light which a wise Providence has mercifully enkindled.
Thus the circumstances which distinguished Christendom, both before and after the period to which we assign the last judgment, were very similar to those which have taken place at the close of all preceding dispensations. They were necessary to indicate the catastrophe, and were requisite to exhibit to men the evidences of its execution.
This judgment is called the last, to express the idea that it is the final general judgment by which a corrupted Church was brought to its end. Other judgments will, of course, follow upon all who subsequently pass into the world ​of spirits, but the last judgment has provided against the possibility of spirits remaining and accumulating there as they had done before. The characters of men since that period have been formed under the influence of greater freedom; and one result of this will be that, when they pass from hence, their judgment will be more speedily accomplished.
Such are some of our views, and some of the reasons which have led us to adopt the, perhaps, astonishing conclusion we have been attempting to explain. While the generality of Christians are looking forward to the last judgment as an event which is to bring ruin upon the universe, we believe that it has already been accomplished, and that its purpose was to lay a fonndation on which the regeneration of the world is to be achieved.
And now we commend these subjects to the careful consideration of the pious and intelligent. We desire that they should be reflected upon wisely and justly, and that nothing should be accepted unless it approves itself to reason, enlightened by a knowledge of the Scriptures, and to conscience, guided by the love of spiritual truth.
* ↑ Luke viii. 17, 18.
* ↑ John v. 29.
* ↑ Luke xvi. 20 to end.
* ↑ John xii. 48.
* ↑ John xv. 7.
* ↑ John xv. 6.
* ↑ Matt. xxv. 32, 33.
* ↑ "We have read somewhere of a number of individuals who broke away from their old ties and hearthstones, went into a new country, and formed themselves into a new community. They had an ideal of a perfect form of society, and this ideal they expected to reduce to its realization. Their external wants and tastes and interests were similar. They had the same notions about property, about labour, about almost everything that pertains to the outward life, and so they expected to open a terrestrial paradise in the wilderness. For a while everything went on charmingly well. The little community grew into an organization of fair proportions and harmonious workings. It was not long, however, before it began to be manifest that man has an internal life as well as external, and that this in the long run is the more dominant of the two. And they found, when brought into close relations with each other, that this internal life showed itself by little and little, and that no considerations of prudence and expediency could cover it-up. By-and-by there were conflicts of self with self; opinion jarred against opinion, and interest clashed against interest; truth and falsehood met together, and did by no means kiss each other: the secret heart of this person and that began to be opened, and to be mutually repellent, and the divers elements of the little community were in a general fermentation and whirl. It was quite evident that, though this might be a good arrangement of body with body, it was a decided mal-arrangement of spirit with spirit. The pressure of spiritual affinities and repulsions from within became greater and greater, and the result was that the whole society broke in pieces; each went to his own place, and left the prairie wolf to howl over the place of his imagined paradise."—Sears on the Foregleams of Immortality. Art. "The Day of Judgment."
* ↑ 1 Pet. iii. 18-20.
* ↑ Rev. vi. 9—11.
* ↑ Matt. xiii. 30.
* ↑ Joel iii. 14. Doubtless, "the valley of decision" is the place of judgment.
* ↑ Gen. vi. 5.
* ↑ If any should instance the peaceful condition of the Roman empire, and from thence object to this general argument, they are reminded that that peace was little else than the awful stillness which precedes an earthquake. It was the mere appearance of a peace where there was no peace. The empire fell by the atrocities resulting from its ambition, and it has bequeathed to posterity a variety of evidence, proving that peace was no element of its character.
* ↑ As an illustration of this, we cite the following allusion, made by Lord J. Russell, in his speech in the "Debates on the Corporation and Test Act." "Every one knows there is a church in this town called 'the qualifying office.' Here they attend, many of them not as if they understood what they were going to do. Some of them are sent for out of taverns, or worse places, when the service is ended, and then (that gentlemen may not have the fatigue of waiting, and may have the preference), the clerk says aloud, 'Gentlemen, you that come to qualify, draw near;' upon which they advance, receive the sacrament, pay their fees, and there is an end of it." Could anything more shocking be invented by which to unfold the fallen condition of a Church than that which made "the blood of the covenant" an unholy thing? And yet, at the time, the clergy strongly resisted the proposed abolition of a bill which had resulted in this profane proceeding.
* ↑ It may be useful to remind the reader that all the spirits who are in this intermediate region are, as to their interior quality, either angels or devils, and consequently that they belong to either heaven or hell; though, for a time, there are certain external conditions connected with their characters which hinder them from entering into their final abodes.
* ↑ These extracts are from the report of a speech by Dr. Bayley, delivered at a public meeting in Freemason's Hall, London, August 19th, 1851.
* ↑ The whole of this paper in the "Essays and Reviews" is full of historical interest upon this subject.
* ↑ Speech of Rev. T. Davies, of Darwen, reported in the Preston Guardian, March 17th, 1866.
* ↑ The Quarterly Review, speaking of the corruptions of the Church, says, "It is marked plainly in the base nepotism and worldliness of the greater number of the ecclesiastics, in their miserable cringing to the minister of the day, in their occasional mendacity as to his gifts, and too frequently in what appears to have been their utter unconscious neglect of the spiritual functions of their apostolic office. For these were the days in which the custom of visiting but once in his episcopate, was established by the Bishop of Winchester; of confirming but once in his archiepiscopate, by the metropolitan of York; and of never residing in his diocese, by the Bishop of Llandaff. It is marked, as might be expected in the clergy who served under such bishops, by low tastes, low manners, and not a little of openly dissolute living among the mass of paid priests. It is marked, both among bishops and clergy, by a neglect of the people committed to their charge, which, as we now look back upon it, appears to be almost incredible. Mr. Bloomfield gives us some instances of this degraded standard of episcopal duty. The chaplain and son-in-law of Bishop North (1781-1820) examined two candidates for orders in a tent on a cricket-field, he himself being engaged as one of the players. Bishop Pelham (1807-1827) performed the same duty, on one occasion, by sending a message by his butler to the candidate to write an essay. The chaplain of Bishop Douglas (1787-1807) did it whilst shaving, and stopped the examination when the examinee had construed four words. The laxity of Bishop Bathurst, of Norwich (1805-1837), known to his Whig admirers as "The Good Bishop," in regard to ordination, is well known. Let any man read the early life of John Wesley, if he would gain any due estimate of the then current state of things. Or, if he would see how, even among the best bishops, down almost to our own days, all living consciousness that they were the spiritual instructors of the people, had well-nigh faded out of sight, let him weigh the fact that, with London multiplying all but visibly under his eyes, Bishop Porteus bequeathed a princely fortune to a nephew, but never built or endowed a single church to the vast metropolis entrusted to his charge; whilst so little was he a preaching bishop, that he could reply to the request for a charity sermon, "I only give one a year, and the next is promised."
* ↑ Isa. v. 13-16.
* ↑ The year in which the last judgment is considered to have taken place is 1757. In that year the "Seven Years' war" commenced; and "in 1758 the war raged in all quarters of the world."—History of England. Student's Hume.
* ↑ In 1770, famine and pestilence destroyed 168,000 persons in Bohemia; 20,000 persons in Russia and Poland; and occasioned a weekly mortality of 1000 persons daily in Constantinople. Two years afterwards, from the same causes, 133,229 persons perished at Moscow, and 80,000 at Bassorah. Other fearful instances could be cited. Of earthquakes a great number might be mentioned. In 1759 there was one in Syria which destroyed 20,000 persons; in 1773, the city of St. Jago, in Guatemala, was buried, and 8000 persons perished in the ruins. Others occurred in Smyrna, Calabria, St. Lucia; in Tuscany, throughout Campania, in Asia Minor, Quito, and in many other places; so that those who insist on such external evidence by which to interpret the prophecies may have them in abundance. But by famine, pestilence, and earth- quakes in divers places, are not properly meant that such things would take place in the natural world, but events corresponding thereto in the spiritual.
* ↑ After the judgment there is not to be expected any great changes in the natural world as to its external forms. There will be treaties of peace and also wars as before, and other things which relate to the general and particular government of societies. But the state of the Church will be changed; it may be as to external appearances, similar to that which it had been, but it will be dissimilar as to its internal. The man of the Church will be in a freer state of thinking about matters of faith, consequently about spiritual things which belong to heaven, because spiritual freedom is restored. Swedenborg's Last Judgment, 116. How truly are the facts thus related being experienced; and does not this realization prove the spiritual insight of the writer?