Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/278

 more or less extended, as the amount of good and evil in them approaches to a balance; in this case the power to hold the ascendancy obtained is weakened upon both sides, and this causes the period for a judgment on their destiny to be prolonged.

But let us look at those points a little closer. It is evident from what has been advanced that the last Judgment is an event to be experienced by spirits of a peculiar class. Before that time many will have experienced their judgment and gone on to their eternal homes; of this several cases are related in the Word: those of Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory at the period of the Lord's transfiguration, being illustrious examples. Hence it is evident that those who were subjects of the last judgment had some peculiarity of character. They were not the eminently wise, for these had before gone on to heaven; they were not the notoriously wicked, for these had before sunk down to hell; they, therefore, must have been some other class. The Lord calls them the sheep and the goats. Speaking of this circumstance, He said, "Before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left." By "all nations" are meant every variety of good and of evil which can dwell together by the acknowledgment of some common principle, like a nation with a king. These, on being separated by a disruption of the bond that had united them, were called