Judgment Day

“ I have ever used to set the last judgment-day before mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher Judge—to whose judgment-seat I do appeal, that never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good. ”

“ Ten thousand human beings, more or less, swarming on the floor, clustering on the walls, rising tier above tier, until in dim distance the pigmy throng seems soaring up into the very heavens, is a tremendous, a solemn, a heart-stirring sight, suggestive—I write with reverence—of the Judgment Day. ”

“ In the next place, it was argued on scientific, rational and scriptural grounds, that the natural world is destined for permanent continuance, and hence that the Judgment Day and other important events, which have been expected to happen at the same time with the destruction of the earth, must be looked for in the world of spirits, and that they will be known in the natural world only by their effects. ”

“ It is a solemn time in a court-room when there is an important case on hand, and the judge of the Supreme Court enters, and he sits down, and with gavel strikes on the desk commanding bar and jury and witnesses and audience into silence. All voices are hushed, all heads are uncovered. But how much more impressive when Christ shall take the judgment seat on the last day of the last week of the last month of the last year of the world's existence, and with gavel of thunder-bolt shall smite the mountains, commanding all the land and all the sea into silence. ”

“ So now arch-sinners win old age or early death; then cometh the Day of Judgment, the greatest of all glories in the world, a day of wrath upon the deeds of men. The Lord Himself, in the assembly, shall judge the multitude. Then shall He lead the souls of the righteous, blessed spirits, to heaven above, wherein are light and life and joy of bliss. In blessedness that host shall praise the Lord of hosts, the King of glory, for ever and for ever. ”

“ Another thought: not some far distant, cold, harsh, unsympathetic God will be the judge at the Judgment Day, but the Lord Jesus, "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," will be the one who will judge you and condemn you and give you your just degree of punishment in Hell. Hear Him: John 5:22, "Neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath given all judgement to the Son." Peter reveals the same fact, Acts 10:42, "He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is he who hath been ordained of God to be the judge of living and dead." ”

“ We do not profess to find in the Divine Word any direct testimony in regard to the precise time when the Last Judgment would take place, yet knowing that every change which takes place in the natural world is the effect of some corresponding but more important change in the spiritual world, we are compelled to regard the political, social and moral revolutions, which are now taking place, as very unequivocal evidences that the Judgment foretold in the Divine Word, has been already accomplished. ”

“ Many of the people who ridicule his demonstrations that the fantastic monsters of the book of Revelation are among us in the persons of our own political contemporaries, and who proceed sanely in all their affairs on the assumption that the world is going to last, really do believe that there will be a Judgment Day, and that it MIGHT even be in their own time. ”

“ The judge, with his legal robes and his formidable-looking wig, sitting grave and stern on his seat of eminence; the eager faces of the barristers; the watchful eyes of the solicitors; the important look on the faces of the twelve jurymen who sat huddled in a kind of square box; the anxious face of the man who stood in the witness-box giving evidence; all appealed to the young fellow's imagination, and caused his pulses to throb violently. ”

“ It will be remembered that that Word often teaches that all judgment has been committed unto the Son of Man, and that He will judge all men at the last day. By the Son of Man,—as was briefly shown on a former page, and as is very fully demonstrated in the writings of our author,—is meant the Lord himself, as Divine Truth. To be judged by the Son of Man in the last day, means therefore, that at the close of each spirit's probation for eternity, his internal and real character will be laid open in the light of Divine Truth. ”

“ Again, the mutual concerns of ministers and their people have a direct relation to the concerns of the day of judgment, as the business of ministers with their people is to promote the eternal salvation of the souls of men and their escape from eternal damnation; and the day of judgment is the day appointed for that end, openly to decide and settle men’s eternal state, to fix some in a state of eternal salvation and to bring their salvation to its utmost consummation, and to fix others in a state of everlasting damnation and most perfect misery. ”

“ If it be true that the long expected Last Judgment has at length been performed,—that the long looked-for time of the Lord's second coming has at last arrived,—in what man pner would it be reasonable to conclude that the important tidings would be conveyed? Are we to behold a multitude of angels in the air, sounding great trumpets, and vocally calling the attention of the world to the crisis which has arrived? ”

“ When the judgment is set, the books opened, we shall suddenly stand before the Judge, precisely in that state of preparation in which we were found at the moment of our departure out of life. Those who have lived as children of God, as servants of Jesus Christ, under the solemn, yet not fearful, expectation of that day, will then be able to lift up their heads and raise the song of joyful recognition. ”

“ Such a confession on the part of the judge was almost unprecedented, and as both Judge Bolitho and Paul Stepaside were so largely in the public eye, their sayings and doings seemed of the utmost importance. There was something romantic in it, too. A father sitting in judgment upon his own son, and not knowing until a few hours before that he was his son! ”

“ Amid all this anarchy and misery, at the close of the thousandth year from the birth of Christ, the belief was quite common throughout Europe that the Day of Judgment was at hand for a world grown old in wickedness and ripe for its doom. ”

“ On the last day, when Jesus Christ shall summon all mankind from the four quarters of the globe before His tribunal, to judge every one according to his works. My dear brethren, we have already considered the Judge as God, as Man, as our Saviour, and as our Model. But in a judgment there are many persons besides the judge: there is the accused, who is cited before the tribunal ”

“ For that day is properly called the day of judgment, because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man unhappy. In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only. ”

“ Here is a plain prediction of a General Judgment, described with the symbolic accompaniment of the burning of the earth, as immediately to precede the establishment of the Christian religion. "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come." ”

“ Let us advance with arms extended to the stranger. Let us emancipate our women, reform our society. Let us arise out of our graves of superstition and of self, and pronounce that the Day of Judgment is at hand ”

“ Why, supposing on the next day—yes, and he could do it, too—supposing on the next day of the trial he, the prisoner, were to proclaim before the court, before the twelve jurymen, before the eager counsel, before the gaping, excited crowd, that this Judge Bolitho, this man who assumed an immaculate air, was one of the most damnable villains that ever crawled upon the earth, that this man, who looked so virtuous and spoke of the majesty of justice, had foully deceived a poor, ignorant, innocent girl, dragged her name in the mire, left her to die, as far as he was concerned, in disgrace! ”

“ But when we pass beyond the simple reception of this doctrine in a general form, and inquire when and how this judgment will take place, we instantly find ourselves surrounded by opposite and conflicting opinions. The most popular and general impression appears to be that the last judgment will take place on this earth, and that it will be accomplished by the Son of God, who will personally descend from heaven for that purpose. ”

“ The legate, clothed in purple, advanced to the foot of the denuded altar, and promulgated the awful sentence that was to deprive a whole Christian kingdom of the consolations of religion. The assembled people answered with a great groan, and, says a historian of the times, it seemed as if the Last Judgment had suddenly come upon men. A respite of twenty days was allowed before the interdict was publicly announced, but after Candlemas Day, 1200, it was not only announced, but rigorously enforced. ”

“ The events which have passed in our times, and which are transacting still, upon the theatre of the globe, are indeed such as proclaim, with a voice of thunder, that some most extraordinary operation from the spiritual world upon the world of nature is in action; they are indeed such as demonstrate, when looked at under the proper aspect, that the last judgment has been performed, and that the second coming of the Lord is taking place ”

“ But, according to the scheme of absolute predestination, all is settled and fixed already; then there is no judging of every man “according to his works,” but according to what is before ordained concerning him. So that the clay of judgment is a solemn farce, or rather we may call it the day of execution, seeing it is only to execute what was long ago determined. What a ridiculous idea does this give us of the proceedings of that great and awful day! ”

“ His coming is the coming of the Internal and spiritual meaning of the word, in glory and power. It will be seen that this view will at once reconcile and harmonize many passages in the word, which, otherwise appear very contradictory and discordant. As, for example, after having been repeatedly taught in the word, that judgment will proceed from the Son of Man, the Lord says: "If any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world but to save the world. ”

“ Rest so severe embittered men’s judgment, and the Sabbath became a day for prying into the derelictions of each other. A rigid observance was placed upon men’s actions, and stringent laws were made to punish the offender against this enforced rest. ”

“ MAN. Why, I thought that the day of Judgment was come, and that I was not ready for it: but this frighted me most, that the Angels gathered up several, and left me behind; also the pit of Hell opened her mouth just where I stood: my Conscience too afflicted me; and as I thought, the Judge had always his eye upon me, shewing indignation in his countenance.
Then said the Interpreter to Christian, Hast thou considered all these things? ”

“ In his public teaching the Saviour declared that the weightier matters of the law were judgment, mercy, and faith; [278] and his long-continued and powerful effort in behalf of the Sabbath, was to vindicate it as a merciful institution, and to rid it of Pharisaic traditions, by which it was perverted from its original purpose. Those who oppose the Sabbath are here guilty of unfairness in two particulars: 1. They represent these Pharisaic rigors as actually belonging to the Sabbatic institution. By this means they turn [132] the minds of men against the Sabbath. ”

“ This the Divine Speaker himself explains to be a figurative description of the Last Judgment still generally expected: "The good seed," he says, "are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one:—the harvest is the consummation of the age:—as therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the consummation of the age. ”

“ And what change could there be adequate to the production of so great a change as we are witnessing here, but the performance of the Last Judgment,—the entirely new state which is thence induced on the intermediate region of the spiritual world, the seat of man's most immediate spiritual association,—and the consequent outpouring from heaven of new streams of light and life into the world of nature? ”

“ When a plea of res judicata is interposed, based upon a former judgment between the parties, the question is not what were the reasons upon which the judgment proceeded, but what was the judgment itself; was it within the jurisdiction of the court, between the same parties, and is it still in force and effect? The doctrine of estoppel by judgment is founded upon the proposition that all controversies and contentions involved are set at rest by a judgment or decree lawfully rendered which, in its terms, embodied a settlement of the rights of the parties. ”

“ "This well may be The Day of Judgment which the world awaits; But be it so or not, I only know My present duty, and my Lord's command To occupy till He come. So at the post Where He hath set me in His providence, I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face,— No faithless servant frightened from my task, But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, Let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles." ”

“ To sanction a proceeding rendering a new judgment without notice at a subsequent term, and hold that it is a judgment rendered with jurisdiction, and binding when set up elsewhere, would be to violate the fundamental rpinciples of due process of law as we understand them, and do violence to that requirement of every system of enlightened jurisprudence which judges after it hears, and condemns only after a party has had an opportunity to present his defense. ”

“ That heaven and hell are no arbitrary allotments, not the gift of immediate mercy on the one hand, nor the infliction of vindictive wrath on the other, but the necessary result of a man's own affections, thoughts and life,—this is a truth that goes home to the heart. No man can seriously contemplate such a truth without being moved and affected by it. ”