Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/92

 world of men which can be reasonably translated to mean such a judgment. It is the soul which constitutes the man, and it is in this that vice or virtue is implanted; this, therefore, is the subject of the judgment. The world of spirits is the first common receptacle for the souls of all who die, and it is there where they remain until their time of judgment. Who does not perceive that He who could say of Himself, "The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world: I am the bread of life;" He who could declare that He was present in heaven at the same time that He was visible on earth, could also be present in the world of spirits to execute the judgment for which He came? And so the first advent of the Lord was attended by a last judgment,—the last of several especially referring to the Jewish economy, because thereby that dispensation was brought to its end. It has, indeed, continued as a form, like a ruin in decay, but from that time it ceased to be recognised as a living institution. Men had rendered its teachings of none effect, and therefore He who founded it supplanted it by another. That other is Christianity; which is to be a perpetual institution among mankind. It is true that some corruption of its primitive excellence was foretold in language plain and striking; but it is equally true that their removal is predicted by the execution of a judgment and the second coming of the Lord. These are among the evident teachings of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew.

While, then, the Scripture history of our race is divided into three epochs, each of which has been distinguished by the existence of a Church, called respectively the Adamic, the Noetic, and the Israelitish, we find that as each became corrupt, and so no longer adapted for carrying on the pur-