Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/67

 usual activity; while the awful circumstance of the ground cleaving asunder beneath the rebels, and swallowing up Korah and his band, and all that pertained to them, and their going down alive into the pit, and the earth closing upon them, were awful evidences that a spiritual catastrophe lay behind those natural occurrences; in other words, that a special judgment had also been executed in the spiritual world upon those evil spirits, who, in the lust of dominion, had stirred up a conspiracy so defiant of heavenly law. But even this disaster did not entirely stay the jealousy of the people; it arrested some of the most malignant causes, and put an end to their particular results. But other causes of discontent remained, and required to be dealt with: these causes were not simply in the facts of the case, but in the minds of the people and their spiritual associates. Instead of being warned by the calamity they had witnessed, they took occasion from it to murmur against Moses and Aaron, saying, "Ye have killed the people of the Lord;" and the result was that wrath went out from the Lord, and the plague began. The wrath of the Lord was an appearance caused by the evil condition of the people: to the wicked His visitations appear like anger, although that is really no attribute of the Divine character. The wicked determination of some to pursue a rebellious course still remained, and this invoked a malignant influence from the spiritual world, which resulted in the plague. These things were not written merely for the sake of their literal history. The narrative was also intended to reveal to us that some malignant spirits were still at work upon the people, that the preceding judgment had not restrained them, and therefore they also had to become the subjects of a disastrous visitation, in order