heritance, and could not be retained.

An inter

mediate state, either one like hades, or of a purifying nature, can hardly be supported by reason. The doctrine of development in the Christian Church justifies the rejection of it.

Though the modern ecclesiastical creeds which have laid aside a hades-state were influenced by opposition to the Romish purgatory, it does not follow that they are wrong on that account. Whoever rejects a bodily resurrection and an external judgment at some future period, whoever also disowns Millennarianism, will consistently refuse to accept an intermediate state of preparation for a higher one. It is sufficient to rest in the idea of spiritual evolution, without perplexing oneself about peculiar stages, states, or places for the soul when it leaves the body. As the old belief of a subterranean world has been dissipated by the knowledge of the earth being a solid globe revolving in space, it is hazardous to locate spiritual beings here

after in regions whose nature is unknown, or to speculate on the means of their progression. The old Egyptian Book of the Dead, with its purgatory of souls and complicated arrangement of different stages, exemplifies the folly of prying into man's future.

CHAPTER V.

THE LAST JUDGMENT.

A judicial process is connected with Christ's return and his awakening the dead. This idea comes from the Jewish expectation that Messiah should subdue the Gentiles. When he was to appear, all peoples hostile to the Israelites were to be visited with condemnation. The notion is expressed in Micah and Isaiah.

But Judaism usually assigned the judgment to God. It is not attributed to Messiah in the Book of Daniel, though he is represented there as a superhuman being coming in the clouds of heaven.1 The judgment assigned to Messiah 1 vii. 13, 14.

1

by the prophets is connected with his princely rule and government, and is rather a continued office among or over the nations than a solemn act of final adjudication completed once for all. Later Judaism sometimes presents Messiah as Judge, at other times Jehovah himself. The apocryphal books which announce a judicial condemnation of the Gentiles attribute it to him, as do the Targums and Talmud. The Book of Enoch does the same. The mother-text of Scripture, as Mede calls it, to which all the descriptions of the great day of judgment refer, is the vision described in the seventh chapter of Daniel, where the great assize is portrayed after the manner of Israel's Sanhedrim, in which. the Ancient of Days had his assessors, sitting upon seats placed in the form of a semicircle before him.2

According to the New Testament, the judg

1 Wisdom iii. 8; Judith xvi. 17; Baruch iv. 30-35.

2 vii. 9.

ment will take place in the presence of angels "When the Son of man shall have come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then will he sit upon the throne of his glory."1 Again, "At the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with angels of his power."2 The business of the angels will be to separate the righteous from the wicked, and assign their future abode to each class respectively. Neither the place nor the duration of the judgment is specified. The word day which is applied to it signifies no more than a definite period; not a common day of so many hours.

Christians participate in the judgment. “Verily I say unto you, That ye who followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, ye also will sit upon the twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."8 Again, "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?"4 This language sug

2 2 Thess. i. 7.

1 Matt. xxv. 31.

4

3 Matt. xix. 28.

I Cor. vi. 3.