Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/101

 unclean can be admitted; and hell is a state of wickedness, into which nothing that is good can be allowed to enter. But universal experience shows that the states of men in this life are of a mixed character. It will rarely happen that any individuals, at the time of death, are so fully prepared that they can at once pass on to their final destination. But supposing such cases do sometimes occur, surely those persons will not pass on to their eternal homes without a judgment? Where, then, can that judgment take place? Doubtless the world of spirits must be the scene of it. How, indeed, can any go from the earth to heaven or to hell, and avoid the imtermediate region? We might as well attempt to pass from mountain to mountain and escape the valley! Good and evil enter into the affections of all men, and although one or the other of those principles will predominate in their character at the time of death, yet something of an opposite tendency will still remain. The mere circumstance of death does not remove from man any principles he may have cherished. Men, in general, pass out of this life with a composite nature, and therefore the separation which is necessary, before they can enter either heaven or hell, must take place in some distinct region. This separation is the work of judgment: it is spoken of as dividing the sheep from the goats; and where can be the scene of it? It cannot be heaven, because the evil which adhered to them will prevent their admission into that kingdom: it cannot be hell, because the good to which they may be attached will hinder them from descending into that fearful abode; it follows, therefore, that there must be an intermediate region for their reception on their departure from the natural world, and that region must be the scene of judgment. The judgment consists in the separation of all those