Page:The Judgment Day.pdf/186

 that do wickedly, shall be as stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it leave them neither root nor branch. Behold I send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." (Mal. iii. 2-5; iv. 1-5.) Here is a sufficiently plain announcement of a day of judgment, in predictions applied by the evangelists, and by the Lord Jesus Christ, to himself while in the world. "For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth. Clouds and darkness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne: his lightnings enlightened the world; the earth saw and trembled: the hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth: the heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory. For he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity." (Ps. xcvi. 13; xcvii. 2–6; xcviii. 9.) A work of judgment is here clearly announced, and depicted with abundance of the appropriate figures; and these three Psalms plainly treat of the Lord's coming into the world, and of the salvation which, by his works of judgment, he would procure for mankind.

Many similar passages might be adduced; but these may suffice to show, that, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, the advent of the Lord in the flesh was to be accompanied with the performance of a General Judgment.—But do we find in the New Testament, any plain intimation that such a judgment was performed accordingly? This question may be most decidedly answered in the affirmative. The New Testament repeatedly notices, as just remarked, the fulfilment of predictions in which the coming of the Lord to redeem mankind is connected with the execution of a judgment: and it presents, besides, other independent testimonies to the same truth. Thus when John the Baptist announces that he was the forerunner of one who was greater than himself, he speaks also of him whom he preceded as coming in the character of a Judge: "He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Matt. iii. 11, 12.) What plainer description of a General Judgment can there be than this? It is in fact described under nearly the same images as the Lord uses, in several of his