The Last Judgment

“ To make me do their work and leave my own;
But having once begun, I turn not back.
Blow, ye bright angels, on your golden trumpets
To the four corners of the earth, and wake
The dead to judgment! Ye recording angels,
Open your books and read? Ye dead awake!
Rise from your graves, drowsy and drugged with death,
As men who suddenly aroused from sleep
Look round amazed, and know not where they are! ”

“ Now if the sight of the Angels alone, who will come to judgment with the Divine Judge, is so terrible, what will be the fear and dread inspired by the Judge Himself, when He comes in all the wrath of offended justice! As in Heaven there is no greater delight than the contemplation of God, so at the Last Judgment there will be no greater pain than to look upon the angry Judge. Before entering upon an explanation of this, let us see with what majesty Christ will come to judgment.
The advent of Christ will be so terrible that neither man nor Angel is capable of describing it aright. ”

“ But when a spot is indicated as the probable theatre of the Last Judgment, it does not necessarily follow that all mankind will be crowded into that narrow space.
We will now consider in what manner we shall be assembled for the final judgment. If the good and the evil are found together in the graveyards and elsewhere, that will come to pass which Our Lord predicted: "So shall it be at the end of the world: the Angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just" (Matt. xiii. 49) . ”

“ The last judgment was executed upon these alone,—the evil who were in no truths being in the hells already; for all the wicked who have denied the Divine in their hearts, and have rejected the truths of the church as incredible, are cast thither when they die, and therefore before the judgment. The first heaven which passed away, consisted of those who were in truths and not in good ”

“ At the same time the mind will inevitably disown its miscreations which, without belief, will no longer exist.
The term "Last Judgment" is frightening not only because it has been projected onto God, but also because of the association of "last" with death. This is an outstanding example of upside-down perception. If the meaning of the Last Judgment is objectively examined, it is quite apparent that it is really the doorway to life. No one who lives in fear is really alive. Your own last judgment cannot be directed toward yourself, because you are not your own creation. ”

“ It is a final healing rather than a meting out of punishment, however much you may think that punishment is deserved. Punishment is a concept totally opposed to right-mindedness, and the aim of the Last Judgment is to restore right-mindedness to you. The Last Judgment might be called a process of right evaluation. It simply means that everyone will finally come to understand what is worthy and what is not. After this, the ability to choose can be directed rationally. ”

“ 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? ”

“ You who believed that God's Last Judgment would condemn the world to hell along with you, accept this holy truth: God's Judgment is the gift of the Correction He bestowed on all your errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to have. To fear God's saving grace is but to fear complete release from suffering, return to peace, security and happiness, and union with your own Identity. ”

“ We shall rise from our graves and be present at it, but we shall have been already judged; so that it will not be by it that we shall be saved or lost. But that judgment which we shall have gone through will perhaps also have come on us suddenly; as suddenly as the one on the last day. For it will come on us the instant that our souls leave the body; the moment after we die we shall appear before the throne of God to receive the sentence of eternal salvation or condemnation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was shown above, in the article for the purpose, that the last judgment does not exist on the earth, but in the spiritual world, where all who have lived from the beginning of creation are together ”

“ But before the last judgment there will be wonders indeed in heaven and earth, the dissolution of both, without a metaphor. The judgments of God upon a sinful world, and the frequent destruction of wicked kingdoms by fire and sword, are prefaces to and presages of the judgment of the world in the last day. Those on whom the Spirit is poured out shall foresee and foretel that great and terrible day of the Lord, and expound the wonders in heaven and earth that go before it ”

“ This continuation of life is what is understood by the resurrection. The reason why men believe that they are not to rise again before the last judgment, when also every visible object of the world is to perish, is because they have not understood the Word; and because sensual men place their life in the body, and believe that unless this were to live again, it would be all over with the man. ”

“ And, now, what is the truth about the "judgment to come"? What is the ethical equivalent of "hell fire"? In the first place, we refuse to believe in a "last judgment" because we know that judgment is not only pronounced but executed instantaneously, automatically, I would say, on the commission of wrong. There is no need to wait for the day of judgment or even for the hour of death. If a man has done wrong he sits condemned that self-same moment. ”

“ Since the time at which we believe the Last Judgment, in the spiritual world to have taken place, every branch of science has been improved to a most unexpected extent, whilst many new ones have been added, and others have assumed a form which makes them virtually new; thus Geology, whose discoveries are so highly interesting, whose conclusions are so momentous, and whose practical uses are so eminent, is entirely the offspring of modern times; whilst chemistry, which is so continually astonishing us with fresh wonders, has undergone, in our times, a change equivalent to a new creation. ”

“ So, then, not content with judging men at death, he will assemble the whole human race with great pomp at the last or general judgment, in which he will confirm his sentence in the view of the whole human race, assembled to receive their doom. ”

“ As to the first, you have somewhere said, in one of your letters, that the final judgment on your merits as a poet is in the hands of posterity, and that you fear the verdict will be “Guilty,” and the sentence “Death.” Such apprehensions cannot have been fixed or frequent in the mind of one whose genius burned always with a clearer and steadier flame to the last. The jury of which you spoke has met: a mixed jury and a merciful. The verdict is “Well done,” and the sentence Immortality of Fame. There have been, there are, dissenters ”

“ A Vision of the Last Judgment This world of Imagination is the World of Eternity; it is the divine bosom into which we shall go after the death of the Vegetated body. This World of Imagination is Infinity & Eternal, whereas the world of Generation or Vegetation is Finite & Temporal. There exist in the Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing which we see reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature. ”

“ You must not marvel at that, the devil continued, all kinds of people always slip in amongst us who wish to be numbered amongst the devils rather than amongst the damned; but I hope the Last Judgment will put an end to these shenanigans, along with many others. ”

“ If, therefore, we are enabled to show that neither reason nor the word of the Lord affords any evidence that the natural world will ever be destroyed, we are justly entitled to infer that it will never be the theatre of a last, or general judgment. ”

“ I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world. ”

“ When Our Lord says that the powers of Heaven shall be moved, He alludes to the Angels; for so terrible will the judgment be, that the Angels will not be exempt from fear; they too will tremble and be afraid. For just as when a judge sits in judgment his grave countenance not only strikes terror into the culprits before him, but over-awes the officials standing around, so when all mankind are brought to judgment the celestial ministers will share the universal horror and alarm. ”

“ Let us not deceive ourselves. These images are, it is true, in their primary signification to be understood as indicating the doom of sinful nations, but, in a wider and a higher sense, according to the interpretation given of them by the exponents of Scripture, they are predictions of the judicial chastisement which, after the final judgment, will be the portion of reprobate sinners. ”

“ A gleam of resentment flashed across the dark lineaments of the Mohican chief: he loosened his knife in its sheath; and then turning calmly from the sight, his countenance settled into a repose as deep as if he never knew the instigation of passion.
"Montcalm! Montcalm!" continued the deeply resentful and less self-restrained scout; "they say a time must come, when all the deeds done in the flesh will be seen at a single look; and that by eyes cleared from mortal infirmities. Woe betide the wretch who is born to behold this plain, with the judgment hanging about his soul! ”

“ For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Gal. 6:8) .
137. What will become of those whom He rejects? Answer: They will depart from his presence with shame and vexation, to suffer according as the Judge shall think they deserve, and at last to be devoured by the second death. ”

“ on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be Thou the trembling sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away! ”

“ THERE have been visions, dark in the minds of men, death and corruption dancing across the secular abyss that separates eternity from time to where sits the ineluctable judge, waiting, waiting through the ages, and ponders all his predestinated decrees. There will be judgment, and each, in an agony of shame, reluctant yet compelled, will turn his own accuser. ”

“ If, however, he desires to examine more fully, the nature of that misery, which the wicked are already beginning to suffer, and which will be fully consummated, when, in the world of endless woe, the last desire for goodness and truth, shall have perished, he may find this subject unfolded and explained, with a life like truthfulness, in those writings to which we have so often referred. ”

“ The boundless mercy was moved, and he was sentenced to take himself off to Nothingness, a valley that lies between life and death, that is neither Heaven nor Hell, that, strictly speaking, does not exist. ”

“ If I have a hope of the future at all—I don’t know that I have—it is that when the Creator is collecting the dead for the judgment, He will shed a tear on my grave, and, knowing my unhappy life, permit me to sleep on. If this cannot be, my fate cannot be much worse elsewhere than it is here, and for the chance of oblivion I am willing to take the risk. In any event, my judge will be a just one, and I am willing to appear before Him. ”

“ Some angels broke out into heavenly music and turned the whole wide atmosphere melodious; the inflamed tones embraced fervently and a powerful spirit of love pervaded the awakened eternity, playing in a childlike manner, so that the hearts of the pious were transfigured and opened up before the divine rays, whereby the melodies became inherent in them and they kissed one another with their thirsting souls. ”

“ Some People flatter themselves that there will be No Last Judgment & that Bad Art will be adopted & mixed with Good Art, that Error or Experiment will make a Part of Truth, & they Boast that it is its Foundation ”

“ Their own sad experience teaches them, better than a thousand arguments, the truth of that Book which declares, that the wicked shall not go unpunished, and that the way of transgressors is hard. Having witnessed one judgment day, and feeling the awful and death-like consequences of being condemned there, they think, with trembling, of the great Judgment day of all mankind, and of the more awful consequences of condemnation then. ”

“ All Things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the Divine body of the Saviour, the True Vine of Eternity, The Human Imagination, who appear’d to Me as Coming to Judgment among his Saints & throwing off the Temporal that the Eternal might be Establish’d. ”

“ From the dread reck'ning of the Judgment day?—
If resting 'neath the blood for sinners spilt,
Look up!—the judge Himself has borne thy guilt'
Justice and Judgement claim thy life in vain,
Since Christ, thy Passover, Himself is slain!
IMMANUEL!—God with us. With us, O Soul!
Of this brief utt'rance canst thou grasp the whole?—
Nay, comprehend one attribute of God,
The Maker, Sovereign, Him who at a nod
Can hurl all worlds to wreck, and with a breath
Can wake a Universe from night and death,
And clothe in Beauty's robes of richest bloom
Ten thousand worlds snatched from chaotic gloom? ”

“ Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give at that day—and not to me only, but unto all them that love His appearing.”
Compare the death of the earnest, working Christian, with that of the opposer of truth or of the cold-hearted formalist. After death comes the judgment!—and the Saviour has said, that the former shall live and reign with Him, whilst the latter shall go away into everlasting punishment. ”