Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/176

 figures significative of some disasters which were contemplated as overtaking the Church? And what else can be the melting of the elements with fervent heat? The terms express no idea which natural philosophy can recognise. What are "the elements"? In the time of the Apostles they were spoken of as earth, air, fire, and water. And who does not see that melting is utterly inapplicable to the majority of them? No one who is at all acquainted with the nature of these things would ever talk about the melting of air, fire, and water. And what is fervent heat? Fervour belongs to mind, and not to matter; and consequently, fervent heat refers rather to mental vehemence than to natural burning; hence the Apostle speaks of being fervent in spirit, of a fervent mind, of fervent prayer, and fervent charity. Is it not plain, then, that Peter is employing figurative language, and that the subject of his discourse is not the destruction of the physical objects of nature, but the dissolution of the spiritual things of a perverted Church? Hence his exhortation, "What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" His declaration, that the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up at the second coming of the Lord, is a figure, quite as decided as that of the prophet Malachi, who, when treating of the first advent, said, "Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts." When the Lord came in the flesh, there was no such natural burning as those terms seem to indicate; and therefore, when similar expressions are employed in the case of His second coming, it is clear that they were not designed for a literal interpretation. Surely he who had quoted