Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/209

 which seemed to threaten his extirpation, conducted him safely through the deepest dangers, and, in the redemption which He accomplished, provided against the possibility of their recurrence. Do not these merciful providences show that humanity will for ever have a place in nature? And is not the same lesson taught in the great fact of our immortality? He who has once began to live can never die, and why may not this be applied to the whole human race? Surely the immortality of the individual may be taken as a revelation of the perpetuity of his species. Other objects of animated nature have died out, because they have not had this principle; but as man possesses it, he cannot be the subject of a similar extinction. He was redeemed to the end that he might be continued: about this there can be no dispute. Some, indeed, may say that this continuance is to last only up to that period when the number of the elect shall be accomplished; but that is no teaching of the Scriptures, and the statement is sufficiently met by the arguments we have used. We feel assured that the ultimate design of that merciful work was to perpetuate human life in the world, and thus for ever to contiuue the existence of the human race which He has formed to love and serve Him.

The Lord, in treating of the last judgment and of His second coming (from which narratives it has been inferred that all things will have an end), admonishes those who are in Judea to flee into the mountains, and him that is in the field not to return for his clothes. By this He doubtless intended to provide for the continuation and safety of the people who obeyed; if not, there could be no advan-