Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/72

 been fostered in Egypt by the heathenism which surrounded them during their residence in that country. This was the secret cause of those frequent lapses into that enormity, and of the calamities which followed its indulgence. Whenever they fell into its open practice, the spirits triumphed; whenever they suffered the consequence of their infidelity, the spirits, as well as themselves, were experiencing a judgment; and whenever they were brought into a better state and greater freedom, it is plain that the power of such spirits had been arrested, and that some superior influences had been mercifully provided. The frequency and prominence of those principles in the Scripture history of the Jewish people are very remarkable, and cannot fail, when they are suggested, to strike the attention of the pious and the thoughtful. Many judgments are recorded, and all of them imply a coming of the Divine, for the purpose of their execution: about these general facts there cannot be any dispute; we therefore will not in this place add to our illustrations. Enough has been said at this early stage of our discussion to direct attention to the idea that the judgments of the Lord are effected by His coming, and that those events primarily occur among spirits in the world of spirits, which is the first common receptacle for all who die. The time for such judgments and coming is when evils of life and false doctrmes have become enormous, and thereby obstruct the orderly working of a beneficent Providence in the affairs of men; and the results of those phenomena will, sooner or later, become manifest