Page:The Judgment Day.pdf/185

 man race. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord hath sent me to preach good tidings unto the meek, &c. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God." (Ch. lii. 1, 2.) In these words, the day of salvation is announced as accompanied by the day of judgment: and of this prophecy the Lord himself said while in the world, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." (Luke iv. 21.), "For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation to me, and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury; and I will bring down their strength to the earth." (Ch. lxiii. 4, 5, 6.) Here again is the salvation to be wrought by the Lord's coming into the world connected with a judgment to be performed at the same time. "Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he-goats." (Ezek. xxxiv. 17.) This whole chapter treats of the salvation to be procured by the Lord when he should appear in the world in the character of the good shepherd; and the judgment then to be performed is in these words briefly described under the same image of separating between the sheep and the goats, as is so beautifully amplified in the description of the Last Judgment in Matt. xxv. "Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured by the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent." (Zeph. iii. 8.) 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." (Joel ii. 30, 31.) Here is a description of the day of judgment with the usual adjuncts; and this prophecy is declared by Peter (Acts ii. 16) to have been at that time fulfilled. "But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And I will come near to you to judgment. For behold they day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all